O’Neil looks to have guided Cherries to Premier League safety with four games to spare, following back-to-back wins last week against relegation-threatened duo Southampton and Leeds United. Asked if he felt criticism during the losing run in January was unfair,
Gary O’Neil said: “I’m not too bothered. People can criticise me as much as they want. I’m happy to be judged every week on what we produce. My job to make sure the players are fit. My job to make sure we have enough of them. My job to make sure we get enough points. At this moment in time, we’ve got all three. I’m just pleased with where we’ve got to. I think it’s the nature of the job, isn’t it? I just try to make sure it doesn’t ever affect the players, so making sure the players are always ready to go. They’ve suffered some tough moments this season. You think away to Arsenal, I think we were bottom of the league as well at that moment when we suffered that late goal. Not many people probably saw us going on the run we did from then. A big effort from everybody and very proud of the group.”
Asked if he always believed Cherries would achieve Premier League safety,
Gary O’Neil added: “It was always achievable. We needed a few things to start to go our way. You think back to that winless run after the World Cup break where we had so many injuries. Obviously we couldn’t strengthen too much in the summer, it was a group that wasn’t overly big at that point. We were suffering injuries, but we didn’t ever waver. The messages have been consistent constantly. We kept trying to do the right things. We kept trying to play in the way that we believed and then when you start to get players back from injury and you have a good January transfer window and the messages are the same – a perfect storm that came together and we managed to put an incredible run of results together.”
