GARY O’Neil says his much-changed Cherries side produced a “performance they could be proud of” as they swept aside Everton 4-1 to progress into the fourth round of the Carabao Cup. Goals from Jamal Lowe, Junior Stanislas, Emiliano Marcondes and Jaidon Anthony secured safe passage through in the cup, cancelling out Demarai Gray’s fine effort for the visitors. It ensured Cherries ended their recent four-game losing run, which has including collapses from two goals up to suffer defeats against Tottenham Hotspur and Leeds United. Asked how much of a boost it was to get the victory on the back of a poor run of results,
Gary O’Neil said: “I wasn’t thinking about the other games. I was purely focused on this one and the boys deserved the victory. They put in a really good performance. So I’m really pleased for them. Obviously some of them have come from not having played very much from longer-term injuries. It was great to get some minutes into them and great for them to put in a performance they could be proud of.”
Discussing the way the side responded to the 4-3 loss at Elland Road,
Gary O’Neil added: “That was a gut-puncher for Saturday evening and then we switched to this. Winning tonight was always going to be big, whether we’d won on Saturday or not. I think the nature of it, if I look back over the last few games, the way the boys have carried out the gameplan, the detail of the gameplan. To go a goal down at Elland Road and to show the quality and the belief in the gameplan to carry it out perfectly and get 3-1 up is a big achievement. I think to be 2-0 up against Antonio Conte’s Spurs is a big achievement. And we spoke the last few days about making sure we managed the end of the game better. And the boys got a great test this evening. To be 2-0 up and it to go to 2-1 was a real test for them. I was interested on the sideline! Very calm, but just interested to say okay, we spoke about this for a couple of days, we know it’s something we need to improve, what a great test. They saw it out really well.”
