Heavily unfancied by most, Cherries have hit form at the right time, 15 points from their last eight games bringing them six points clear of the bottom three with seven games remaining. As a newly promoted side from the Championship, Cherries were viewed as likely candidates for the drop in pre-season by sections of the national media. Discussing proving people wrong,
Ryan Christie shared: “Personally, I’ve kind of felt it since the very start of the season. On pre-season, the first media, everyone was talking about relegation for us. I was thinking ‘we’ve not even kicked a ball yet’. So that’s nice. It gives us the feeling to keep everything in house and do it for ourselves and the travelling fans. It kind of builds that feeling of us against the world almost. I think that plays into our hands. A good run of form right now. Hopefully we can continue it into a big game Sunday and keep building on that.”
Asked how Cherries were dealing with the congested lower portion of the table,
Ryan Christie replied: “Probably just trying to do what we’re doing, which is putting a run of games together. Three big games coming up, West Ham being huge. If you can get another positive result in two or all three of them, I think that’s when we’ll probably notice the difference. I don’t think many teams would have thought we were going to come (to Spurs) and pick up a result like we did. It’s nice, hopefully other teams looking at that and cursing us a little bit. Hopefully a good win to push us on and get another few wins and get us safe.”
Playing other teams in the relegation scrap not only gives Cherries the opportunity to add points to their own tally, but also to deprive positional rivals of picking up key results.
Ryan Christie said: “I think it plays into the fact more of how the league looks, just because there are so many teams in and around it. When you can get a result against teams (near you), obviously we felt how big the Leicester win was, just to kind of create a gap between you and others. Obviously a big game coming up. The West Ham game marks the start of a run of fixtures against fellow sides in the relegation battle. Cherries visit Southampton next Thursday, before welcoming the division’s most out-of-form team, Leeds United, to Vitality Stadium next Sunday.”
