Eddie Howe feels Ryan Fraser produced a “decent performance” on Saturday, despite being bombarded with abuse from the travelling Cherries fans at St James’ Park. The section of supporters who made the trek to the north east made their feelings known towards their former star, regularly booing and chanting against him whenever he got the ball during the Premier League contest. Cherries ended up getting relegated under Howe, with Fraser moving on to Newcastle United on a free transfer. Speaking after the move,
Ryan Fraser said: “At the end of the day, I need to look after myself. My contract was done, so it’s not like I refused to play any games. The worst thing is that I didn’t want them to go down – it would have been a lot easier if they had stayed up. With me playing, without being big-headed, I think I would have helped massively. I wanted to help the team and I didn’t want them to go down. I felt if I played – without sounding big-headed or big-time – because I’m very honest, I hope people think that, I’d like to think I’d have kept them up. That hurts even more. But I wasn’t under contract so I didn’t actually do anything wrong.”
Fraser had numerous shots during Saturday’s 1-1 draw, denied by a brilliant diving Neto stop, before being replaced with 20 minutes to play. Asked if he spoke to Fraser in the build-up to the game to prepare him mentally for the reception he might receive from the Cherries fans,
Eddie Howe said: “We had discussions in the week, as I would have discussions with all my players in the build-up to the game. I thought it was a decent performance from Ryan. We probably didn’t him enough of that ball in the first half. There was some good little moments from him. But I think our attacking players, probably their overall performance were epitomised by the fragmented nature of our performance. We couldn’t build that momentum to really show them at their best.”
