The Burkinabe international has provided three assists in seven Premier League appearances since arriving at the Vitality Stadium in January from FC Lorient for a reported £20million. Prior to the opener on 28 minutes, Ouattara had two decent chances to open his scoring account for his new club. In the more notable of the two opportunities, the former Lorient man found himself one-on-one with keeper Alisson, the winger’s touch to try and take the ball around the goalie too strong, forcing the resultant shot from a tight angle into the side netting. However, despite the misses, O’Neil believed Cherries would have struggled to get into the same areas without Ouattara in the team.
Gary O Neil said: “I think we wouldn’t have had that chance before he arrived, unless Tav (Marcus Tavernier) was fit. We might have managed to get Tav in those situations. So he’s brought an awful lot. And obviously we knew this before and we’ve done some work on (it), Alisson’s incredible in one-v-one situations, so even when you’re going through, they’re tough to finish, those. He just has a slightly too big a touch. He’s 20 years old and adapting to the Premier League, so, yeah, still plenty of work to do with him.”
There was also praise for Ouattara’s defensive contributions throughout the game, with O’Neil detailing how Cherries had asked the winger to track back and form a five-man backline when Liverpool had the ball.
Gary O’Neil explained: “I don’t want to speak too much about it, but we felt there was certain people that we could get after, certain people that we were happy to leave with a bit more time on the ball. It was sort of a back four, but we knew Dango would have to track down with Andy Robertson, so it would look like a back five at times, which it did. Dango did it well in the majority. I think Andy Robertson got behind him once or twice early on. I thought we’d be able to hurt them on the counter, because their fullbacks are obviously attacking. Andy Robertson plays higher, Trent (Alexander-Arnold) rolls around, he ends up in midfield sometimes and there are spaces then down the side to try and counter. And we didn’t quite make the most of it, but we did enough to win the game.”
