Players Need To Accept Responsibility

Last updated : 05 January 2009 By Bournemouth Co-Ordinator
With the three games over Christmas and New Year delivering no points to help the Cherries plight, the players need to accept responsibility for the lack of goals, even though they are capable of dominating possession.

Speaking to the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Danny Hollands is quoted as saying: "It's been a difficult period. It's always busy at this time of year, but we've had a new manager and board changes as well so it's been hard. Luckily for us though, Eddie came in and we all know him well. We all want to do well for him because he's a good coach and he knows what he's doing. We know how he wants to play and will be trying as hard as we can for him. With a hard week ahead of us, we will knuckle down in training and try to turn this around, starting with Bradford. Everybody was very disheartened and I thought the penalty was harsh. But we didn't help ourselves and had a few chances where maybe we should have done a bit better. If we had then what happened at the end wouldn't have mattered. But there were plenty of positives to take out of it because we created a lot more chances than we have in recent weeks. We stuck to our guns and stuck to our game-plan. Despite their possession at the start of the first half, they didn't create much at all and we deserved our half-time lead. I don't think the referee helped us throughout the game and we feared the worst when the lad went down for the penalty".

Jason Pearce was quoted afterwards as saying: "We went in with a game plan and stuck at it well. We got a goal in front and we were hanging on well. I thought we were playing well. We looked pretty comfortable and all they were doing was long balls really. Then, in the last 10 minutes, they got a goal back and I still thought we felt comfortable. Then the ref gave a penalty against me that, in my opinion, wasn't a penalty. A lot of the lads are devastated because they didn't think it was a penalty either. Someone flicked it in to him and he was running in on goal. I came over to cover and he booted it in the air. Jal came to catch it and I stood my ground and he ran into me and fell on the floor. It's ridiculous - it was never a penalty".