O'Neil hails 'excellent' Bournemouth for victory at Southampton

Bournemouth clinched a vital three points as they won 1-0 at Southampton.

Marcus Tavernier struck the winner after halftime to take the Cherries to 36 points and 14th on the Premier League table.

Cherries boss Gary O'Neil later said, "I thought we were excellent, I thought we were by far the better side and I was disappointed we had to hang on at the end because we'd only scored one.

"We were pretty dominant throughout and then of course there is going to be some desperation from Southampton at the end with the situation they're in. It gets a bit messy and we get a VAR check go our way which was a surprise - we haven't had too much.

"It was nice to get three points in what was a huge game. The lads thoroughly deserved it, we should have been more clinical and we had to show some resilience at the end against a team that was throwing everything forward at the end, including the goalkeeper. It was a good win.

"We arrived in the penalty area so many times and perhaps had too many touches or just missing the last pass, not arriving at the right time.

"In the bigger picture, work to be done on that but the way that we played through Southampton, understood how they were pressing and caused them real problems - proud of the played and the way they played. Delighted with the win.

"There are a lot of points still to play for, we're not going to settle on 36. We have to keep pushing and get as many as we can to hopefully secure safety as early as possible."

Matchwinner Tavernier was forced off with injury and O'Neil said: "He felt his hamstring. No idea how serious. That was the only downside, maybe losing Tav for the weekend but we'll check him and hopefully it was just a touch of cramp at the end."

The Cherries manager concluded: "I could see 36 points still going down so where we are at the moment could end up going down. There are no celebrations in there. Sunday is going to come quickly and we need to be ready.

"Let's try and win the next five then I'm sure we'll be OK."