Gary O’Neil
Cherries’ fantastic April form has taken them away from danger, with nine points separating them from the relegation zone with three to play. A point at Selhurst Park tomorrow (kick-off 3pm) would mathematically confirm their spot in next season’s Premier League. Whilst Cherries seem all but safe, O’Neil wants his side to make sure of their top-flight status.
Gary O’Neil shared: “We’ve got 39 points, and 39 should be enough, but until it’s done, the longer it goes, the more nervous you can start to feel again. So let’s get it done officially as soon as we can, take care of it ourselves on Saturday with a point or three, and then importantly for me, the performance and trying to put a few things right that we’ve suffered with recently. The main focus is getting points tomorrow, definitely, but of course, if we were on 29 points going into tomorrow’s game, there would have been 100 per cent focus. Like, we have to take something from this game, whereas now there is we are desperate to take something from this game, but next season is coming and there are things that we can start to put in place.”
O’Neil has already identified the area needing the biggest improvement, with Cherries’ poor record at set pieces highlighted.
Gary O’Neil continued: “There’s been a big thing made about defensive set plays and the amount of goals we’ve conceded, so it has to improve by next season. Sometimes difficult to change that in a short period of time. Next season will come and we can’t concede as many goals next season from set plays as we have this season, defending the penalty area, crosses and things. So, a lot of work this week on trying to move things on, whereas maybe if the situation was different, maybe we’d have held off on that till the summer.”
Premier League prize money is distributed in such a way that the difference between final positions is worth around £3million,
Gary O’Neil shared: “I’m well aware of how important it is that we finish as high as possible, but there’s probably £200 million at stake next year for trying to stay up again as well. Things that we can do now that can help us as we look at next season as well. As always, a real focus on this game and what it needs to look like from us, but because of the work that the lads managed to do, we do come into the last few games of the season with less pressure on every result. We can go into games, we can start to add things, maybe things that I’ve wanted to add that we haven’t been able to because of the nature of the next game being another cup final and every point being so precious. So the next few weeks does give us a little bit more freedom to have a look at some things as well as try and get results.”
