Gary O’Neil’s charges were reminded they are not safe from the threat of relegation by fellow strugglers West Ham on Sunday, the Hammers easing to a 4-0 win at Vitality Stadium. Once again Cherries were undone by set-pieces, West Ham opening the scores from a corner headed home by Michail Antonio. The Cherries defence did not cover itself in any glory for the second on 12 minutes, Lucas Paqueta ghosting in at the far post to score another header. Declan Rice caught the hosts out at another corner before the break, with substitute Pablo Fornals finishing the scoring midway through the second half.
Speaking after the game,
Jaidon Anthony shared: “We’re very disappointed with ourselves, first and foremost. The way we executed the game plan. We weren’t good enough in both boxes and we were punished for that. Frustrated, but we got another game coming very fast and we’re looking to put it right. Hopefully we can do that. We know we have to turn up. There’s no game that’s going to be given to you in this league. We were punished for mistakes and for not being in the right position and stuff like that. We’ve got to learn from it, and bounce back on Thursday. This league, it does that to you. You can never really predict what’s going to happen. Obviously we’re disappointed with how we performed. We didn’t really get the basics right. We were punished for that.”
Not first the first time this season, Cherries struggled to create clear cut chances despite enjoying a majority of possession.
Jaidon Anthony said: “I think every team will say so it’s a lot harder to break a team down when they get bodies behind the ball, but we know we have the players to break it down. (Against West Ham) it didn’t quite work out, but it’s never easy when you have that many bodies in front of a goal to try and try and find gaps that they don’t let you create.”
Cherries face another six-pointer with a rival for survival in the form of Southampton on Thursday evening, with Anthony hoping his team can put right their wrongs from the weekend.
Jaidon Anthony restarted: “You see in this league, there’s always surprises in there and Thursday, I’m sure there’ll be no difference. Another tough game that we’re going to try and try and win and hopefully we will do that there. We’ve had some good results recently and showed what a good side we are. We’ve just to get back to basics. Try and pick ourselves up, and getting going again Thursday. We got another chance to try and put it right and be on the right side of a result, of a performance on Thursday.
