‘WE ARE AT A DIFFERENT POINT, BUT WE ARE COMPETING WITH THESE SIDES NOW’
MICHAEL O’neill believes his side gave as good as they got against league-leaders Bournemouth on Tuesday.
Dominic Solanke’s second half strike edged a tightlycontested affair in front of the live television cameras, and in the process inflicted a first home defeat of the season upon the Potters.
The reverse comes on the back of Saturday’s narrow loss at Sheffield United, and has left the Northern Irishman frustrated, especially given the manner in which the Cherries went on to win the game.
“We never like losing at home and obviously we have been excellent here this season, so for the game to be decided with a goal like that is hugely disappointing,” he told BBC Radio Stoke.
“There was very little in the game in my view – they are clearly a good side, you could see that and it is no surprise that they are top of the league.
“They have a lot of good players, they are physically strong as well, but I thought we gave as good as we got to be perfectly honest.
“Yes, at times they were slicker in possession of the ball than we were, we had to play under pressure a little but we persevered with that and stuck at it.
“I thought in the first half we were not able to play through the pitch in the manner we would like, but credit to them for that for pressing us so well.
“But as the game wore on, we started to find those spaces and as a consequence we enjoyed our best period late on.
“We hit the post quite quickly after they had scored, flashed one or two great balls across goal and had a few other opportunities late on too, which we just weren’t able to fully capitalise on.”
O’neill feels his side are showing they are capable of challenging at the top end of the table, despite the disappointment of tasting successive league defeats for the first time this season.
“Listen, these sort of teams who come down are at a different stage than we are, and we have to remember that,” he added.
“We are building a team here which can challenge, and is challenging.
“We maybe had our chance of doing what Bournemouth are doing right now just after we came down from the Premier League.
“There has been a lot of change here, whereas Bournemouth have still largely got the group that they came down with, with the exception of one or two players.
“We are at a different point to Bournemouth, but the big thing for me is that we are competing with these sides now, and we are showing we are good enough to compete with them.
“We beat West Bromwich Albion, narrowly lost at Sheffield United and have narrowly lost here too, and these are sides who are going to be right up there.
“What we have to do now is put the disappointment of these two results behind us and get ourselves back on a winning run, hopefully starting at Millwall.”