Bournemouth boss Gary O’Neil insists that his side don’t have a mental advantage over Everton ahead of Saturday’s Premier League showdown despite thrashing them 4-1 in Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup tie. The Cherries won comfortably with both sides making wholesale changes to their line-ups from their fixtures in the Premier League the previous weekend as the hosts made nine alterations and the Blues swapped their entire 11.
However, with significant switches in personnel expected for what will be the final game until Boxing Day as the English top flight takes an unprecedented mid-season break for the World Cup, O’Neil denies his charges will have the upper hand ahead of the second part of their double-header against Frank Lampard’s men, who go into the fixture one place above them in the table in 16th and with just one point more.
He said: “I don’t think it will have any bearing on Saturday’s game, I think they’re a fantastic team, you see the amount of changes that they made here and it was still a hell of a line-up that Frank puts out. They’re a very strong team, the game on Saturday will be completely different I’m sure with both teams not wanting to give too much away in this one in terms of shapes and what we usually do as well I guess, it will be a very, very different game and another difficult one for us.”
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The 39-year-old added: “I treat them all as massive games and it’s just another one of those. As you know, every time I speak to you guys, my only focus is to put as many points on the board as I can for Bournemouth and to make sure the lads are always in a good place so we will go full tilt from now until Saturday and as always, see where the chips land.”
Bournemouth had been beaten in four consecutive fixtures before ending their losing streak in emphatic fashion here but O’Neil maintained he wasn’t dwelling on their recent setbacks – they threw away a 3-1 lead at Leeds last time out to lose 4-3 – although he conceded that the players faced a test of their resolve when Everton substitute Demarai Gray reduced arrears. He said: “I wasn’t thinking about the other games and was just focused purely on this one and the boys put in the victory, they put in a really good performance so I was really pleased for them as some have come in from not having played very much and it was great to get some minutes into them and it was great for them to put in a performance they can be proud of.
“I think those were gut punches for Saturday evening and then we switched to this and winning tonight was always going to be big whether we’d won on Saturday or not. But when I look back over the last few games, the way the boys have carried out the game plan, the detail of the game plan, to go a goal down at Elland Road and show the quality and belief in the game plan to carry it out perfectly and go 3-1 up is a big achievement; to be 2-0 up against Antonio Conte’s Spurs is a big achievement and we spoke over the last few days to make sure we manage the end of the game better. The boys got a great test this evening to be 2-0 up and it goes to 2-1, it was a real test for them and I was interested on the sideline – very calm but 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’ and they saw it out really well.”
With Luton Town manager Nathan Jones admitting that he will talk to Bournemouth’s south coast neighbours Southampton about their managerial vacancy after the sacking of Ralph Hassenhuttl, O’Neil in turn has been touted as his potential successor at the Championship outfit. But the man who has officially held the title of interim head coach since promotion-winning manager Scott Parker was sacked after the 9-0 drubbing against Liverpool at Anfield won’t look beyond Everton’s return on Saturday.
He said: “I’m full focused on the Everton game at the weekend and have no interest in discussing other jobs. I’m doing the job at the moment that I love and I’m really grateful to Bournemouth Football Club for allowing me to be in charge of this team for so long. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m going to enjoy the next four days and let’s worry about what happens to Gary O’Neil after that as my full focus at the minute is making sure the team is ready.”
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