Winger Ryan Christie insisted “a bit of magic” from in-form Gabriel Jesus set the tone for Cherries 3-0 defeat against Arsenal. Jesus played a key role in the Gunners’ opener after just five minutes at Vitality Stadium. After shrugging off new Cherries centre-back Marcos Senesi following a ball forward, the Brazilian skipped away from Jefferson Lerma and Adam Smith before sliding a pass to Gabriel Martinelli. Martinelli’s shot was saved before Martin Odegaard fired home to give Mikel Arteta’s side an early lead. The Gunners skipper then netted again six minutes later, leaving Cherries reeling before William Saliba struck a third in the second half. Assessing the contest,
Ryan Christie said: “It’s tough. You feel for the boys because they work all week in the starting line-up and you go into the game in 11 minutes, you find yourself 2-0 down and it’s hard. The first goal is a bit of magic from Jesus, the second goal is an unbelievable finish on a tiny offside decision that just went against us. Those are the sides of the game that it comes down to in this league. It’s frustrating but it’s very early on in the season, there’s nothing to get too down about this early.”
Defeat was Cherries’ first in the league at Vitality Stadium since January.
Ryan Christie added: “Obviously it’s frustrating. First and foremost, no matter what team comes here, at home we always fancy our chances to get a result. We were obviously confident going into the game, worked a lot on it and it’s just frustrating. The boys are obviously frustrated by how the first half went. Arsenal showed their quality – they have got some unbelievable players, especially in that attacking line-up. A couple of moments of brilliance from them killed us. I think second half as a team we were better, just in terms of competing a bit more and I think we were in the game a bit more. It was a bit unfortunate for the boys, the third goal, the timing of it, because it felt like we were gaining a bit of momentum at the start of the second half. That seemed to kill us a little bit. They are a very good side and there are positive to take from it. The second half was better – that’s the kind of level. We played to that kind of level against Aston Villa, got the three points. That’s the level we need to find consistently in this league if we are going to be successful.”
Cherries head to Norwich on the second round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday, before a trip to Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday.
