O’Neil: “We’ve had some tricky situations to deal with injury wise”

AFC Bournemouth take on Brentford on Saturday and Cherries boss, Gary O’Neil, gave an update on the availability of his players ahead of the Premier League clash.

Defender Adam Smith is banned for the game in West London whilst Marcus Tavernier and Junior Stanislas are long term injury absentees and will miss out on the visit to the Gtech Community Stadium.

However, O’Neil is waiting upon a few late fitness checks on some of his players with the likes of Chris Mepham and Jefferson Lerma rested last weekend with hamstring and knee issues respectively.

Speaking about the fitness of his squad ahead of tomorrow’s game, O’Neil said: “:We will have to see, I think there will probably be a couple of late calls.

“It seems to be the way at the moment, it has been a tough spell on that front obviously this season we’ve had some tricky situations to deal with injury wise.”

Club captain Lloyd Kelly is also still only just back from injury, and had been thrust back into action with an intense period of three games in eight days prior to the defeat to Burnley.

Brazilian goalkeeper Neto is also a doubt after sustaining a hamstring injury against West Ham at the end of October, whilst Ryan Fredericks has been unavailable since the Premier League resumed after the World Cup and O’Neil knows the value Kelly and Neto bring to the team and acknowledged their absence was not ideal.

“The loss of Lloyd for 12 weeks was a tough one,” he exclaimed.

“Neto when came in and had such a big impact and then Tav (Tavernier) as well was a blow.

As a newly promoted side, your big performers, you need and obviously we have lost a few.”

The bournemouth head coach was upbeat about his side’s confidence and mood ahead of tomorrow’s trip to an in-form Burnley and is fully focused on getting a result to bring back toVitality Stadium.

He added: “Having said that, the group are in real good spirits and we go to Brentford to add points to the board.”