Cook confident that Cherries will address goal concerns

BOURNEMOUTH’S Lewis Cook remains confident that “the goals will come” despite their wastefulness in the final third costing them what should have been a one-sided defeat of Leicester.

On Saturday they drew 0-0 at the Vitality Stadium when, despite being denied a clear penalty for Danny Simpson’s handball, they convincingly outplayed their visitors before consistently missing goalscoring chances.

The result left them 19th when victory would have taken them out of the Premier League’s bottom three, but the recalled Cook retains faith in the options provided by Jermain Defoe, Josh King, Benik Afobe and Callum Wilson.

The 20-year-old was their finest performer when starting his first Premier League fixture since May, and he told the club’s official website: “We were positive going forward. We have top quality strikers there so the goals will come, maybe not (on Saturday) but certainly another.

“We’re getting back to how we were last year and we can take that as a positive.”

Cook will spend much of the coming fortnight on duty with the England Under-21s, and he said: “I’ve got England coming up now so hopefully I can get some minutes there, whilst the lads can also regroup and get some training done.”

Leicester manager Craig Shakespeare recognised his team struggled on the south coast: “It was a hard-earned point. Bournemouth started really well.

We struggled to get the pace of the game and the momentum was with Bournemouth. Offensively I would have liked to have caused them more problems.”