Bournemouth star Adam Smith has claimed that the Cherries will use their last-gasp defeat to Arsenal as a "positive" for the rest of the season, after he claimed that the more teams like Leeds United that are in the relegation fight the better.
Leeds sit a point behind Bournemouth and a point ahead of Southampton in 19th place. With just 12 games left in the Premier League season, the relegation battle has rarely been this close as only five points separate the bottom nine teams.
Whites fans would have been mightily relieved when Reiss Nelson's 97th minute winner saw Arsenal beat Bournemouth 3-2 at the Emirates earlier this month. However, the south coast club would follow that performance up with a 1-0 win at home against Liverpool to ramp up the pressure on Javi Gracia's side.
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And Smith has now revealed that Bournemouth are not intimidated when they come up against the teams at the top of the table.
"The games against the top six teams, we've kind of got less pressure," Smith told BBC's Monday Night Club. "So it's kind of easier going into them games. It's more the games for the teams in and around us where there's more pressure and that's how you have to deal with it.
"And I think the teams that will survive, deal with the pressure the best. And that's what I think it really comes down to.
"The way they're playing [Arsenal] at the moment is is unbelievable," Smith said when asked for his thoughts on his side's performance during the defeat to the Gunners. "To be honest, no one expects you to get anything from the game. So you do have less pressure for sure.
"It's the ones that you think you've got a good chance against them and the teams in and around you that they're the ones that has more pressure, the supporters expect you to get a result.
"They're the games you feel more pressure as a player for sure. Going to the Emirates, you don't really feel as much pressure.
"Playing well against Arsenal, I know it was it was really bad ending, but to give the best team in the league problems at their home ground, you know that there was positives to take from that. So we did take that into Liverpool.
"Hopefully now after this we can we can try and kick on, but you know you've got keep your feet on the ground and perform against [Aston] Villa on Saturday and obviously try and get the three points again.
"We had a meeting with the gaffer [after the defeat to Arsenal] and he basically showed us the positives in that game and not to look at the negatives and how we're feeling at the moment but if we've just gone to the Emirates, you know, a lot of teams around us that have gone there have lost three, four our five-nil. And we've gone there and we really should have got a draw at least."
Smith also believes that with nine clubs currently separated by just five points, there is every chance for Bournemouth to escape out of the bottom three come May.
"The more clubs that are in [the relegation battle] is better to be honest," he added. "Especially for us, we try not to look at the other teams.
"We just need to concentrate on ourselves and we're the only ones who are going to get ourselves out of this situation. So we try and just focus on ourselves but I think the more teams that are in around it, is only going to benefit us for sure.
"It is so hard just to find that consistency, if we perform like that every week [against Arsenal and Liverpool], we would win most games. It's having the right mentality and, and having the belief, so it's a lot to do with confidence."
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