O’Neil: Performance Enough to Take Points But We Can’t Make Such Big Mistakes
Sunday, 8th Nov 2026 17:59
Boss Gary O’Neil felt the Blues’ performance was enough to have taken something from their 2-1 home defeat to his former club AFC Bournemouth but was left rueing his side making big errors which led to the Cherries’ goals.
Keeper Christian Walton was dispossessed by Bournemouth striker Evanilson, who put his team, who are up to seventh in the Premier League, in front in the fifth minute.
The second half was only 27 seconds old when, after Abdoul Ouattara had given the ball away to the Brazilian, Leif Davis inadvertently put through his own goal to make it 2-0 to the Cherries, who have won their last eight in all competitions and four in a row in the league.
Jack Clarke netted from the penalty spot on 76 to give the Blues’ hope but the Cherries were able to see out their second successive 2-1 victory at Portman Road having won by the same scoreline in the corresponding fixture two years ago.
“Gutted with the result, firstly, because it’s what we’re here for,” O’Neil said. “Probably, performance-wise, not much in it, so to lose a football match that you’ve not really been outclassed in feels hard to take.
“The lads gave a lot, played OK for large parts of it, but not much in it, which is a compliment to the players given where Bournemouth are and their standing at the moment, in the Europa League.
“But if you give the ball to the opposition number nine twice, it’s going to be difficult.
“That was basically the story of the game, really. Gave a lot, played quite well, lacked a little bit of thrust once we got to final third. Got there a lot, but didn’t really produce big enough moments and made two massive, well, one massive and one big error that cost us two goals.”
O’Neil was similarly left bemoaning errors last week as the Blues drew 2-2 at Hull City, Tim Iroegbunam having been allowed to run in on goal unchallenged for the first, then Oli McBurnie hitting a low free-kick under a Town player and into the corner of the net for the second.
“Different nature of mistakes, obviously,” O’Neil reflected. “But yes, it’s the level, so we have to find a way of not only being competitive in games, which we were again, probably for the tenth game on the trot, barring the small spell at Manchester United, but can we now find a way to make sure that the Hull and Bournemouth performances are four points not one, because we need to take points.
“But the positive is that we’re putting ourselves in real good positions. That performance is easily enough to take points. You can make mistakes in football matches, but you can’t make mistakes that big in those areas of the pitch. You can’t.
“And that’s never, ever individual criticism from me, I take responsibility for everything that goes right and wrong, so there’s no individual [criticism], still proud of the players. I thought Walts’ response, big save at the end. Walts will be fine. He knows the solution for that instantly.
“The other one’s a little bit more complicated. We were a bit unlucky with it as well, to be fair. The lads recover to the goal, get bodies in the way and it hits Issa [Diop] and Leif and goes in.
“But, we’re going to make mistakes, of course, everybody does, but we need to make sure that they’re not so damaging to us.
“You think of the last two weeks, to let McBurnie side-foot a free-kick in the corner without having to go over anyone is a big mistake, big error.
“The number nine to tackle your goalkeeper is a big error and the Premier League is tough enough.
“We restricted Bournemouth to basically nothing of their own doing today, which with the form they’re in [is impressive]. I knew today was going to be a difficult game and I’m surprised how little we let them create against us for the players they have.
“I can’t think of anything really, [Marcus] Tavernier just after the goal where there’s a bit of a goalmouth scramble, but apart from that I don’t remember them creating a thing.
“So that is a big positive because the lads are giving everything down there and competing against good sides.
“But we have to find a way to make sure that we can manage those big moments in the game better than that.”
Walton came into the team in September for summer signing Kjell Scherpen after the Dutchman had made an unconvincing start to the campaign.
Quizzed on his thoughts on the goalkeeping situation following Walton’s error today and supporters’ frustrations, O’Neil said: “Definitely nothing knee-jerk. Unless I bump into a fan, I’m not going to hear any of that noise anyway.
“Just watch them work every day. Walts has been better than Kjell for the last few weeks, which is why he’s got the shirt at the moment.
“If Kjell can show me he’s better than Walts or if Palms [Alex Palmer] can show me he’s better than both of them, then me and Reg [Rene Gilmartin], the goalkeeper coach, who has a big say in this stuff, he works with them every moment of every day, we’ll choose the one who’s best in goal at that moment.
“Walts is a good goalkeeper. He’s been here a long time, he’s steady. Today isn’t a mistake that Walts makes very often.
“We try to pass the ball, of course we do, it’s the Premier League, we’re not going to boot the ball to the top all the time.
“But once we’d tried to pass the ball and it’s come back from Dara [O’Shea] to Walts, Walts knows that we should go to the top line at that moment and we should be safe.
“We talk about it a lot with the players. We choose where we lose the ball, so if we get in a situation that is uncomfortable at any moment, we lose the ball as far away from our goal as possible.
“But that’s really easy to say, it’s really easy to sometimes do in training. Sometimes something can happen in a game that just throws you for a second and Evanilson is very good at pressing like that.
“Walts has made a slight mistake there. Maybe I’ve made a slight mistake in not being clear enough with him on, ‘when it comes back to you mate, this needs to go to the top!’.
“We all have to take responsibility for that and I love the group, they gave everything again against a good side but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to push the life out of them – ‘come on lads, you don’t deserve that today. The way you set up, the way you play, the way you work, you don’t deserve that’.
“That 25 minutes that we played at the start of that game should have Portman Road roaring. Bournemouth should be feeling it, but because we’ve made an error and Bournemouth are 1-0 up and they’re thinking, ‘Ipswich are on top here but we’re 1-0 up’, it’s OK.
“The fans are still right with us, but they’ve just suffered a huge setback and you can feel it.
“So I need to push them on that and I will. I’m a fairly nice guy, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t push when I need to. The lads know that we’re doing well, we’re in a good moment, we’re competitive in every game, but we have to find a way to be better
“I don’t want to have to sit here and say to you guys very often, ‘yeah, we played pretty well apart from…’. I’m sure you guys are sick of it already after two weeks, I’m sick of saying it two weeks on the trot.
“So next time we need to make sure that any errors we make are not right around our goal and they’re not as damaging as today’s were.”
Asked whether he felt the early goal knocked the stuffing out of his side, who had had a number of promising openings prior to Bournemouth going in front, O’Neil responded: “I sat with the staff for 25 minutes, sat back to see what they were thinking and we were in a good spot.
“We were getting Jaden [Philogene] loads of ball on the outside, we got Julio [Enciso] in some dangerous positions, we got Daizen [Maeda] behind the backline a lot on the right-hand side.
“So it wasn’t just the first five minutes for me, it was probably 25-30 before Bournemouth had a bit of a spell.
“But, like I say, 1-0, there’s a goal up on the scoreboard that we can’t ignore and the whole place can feel it. Bournemouth take belief from it and they’ve not conceded many goals recently.
“So they’re 1-0 up, they can feel us pushing but they feel more comfortable than they should because we’ve given them a goal.
“The fans, I can feel them, they’re trying to push the lads but they can still see the big ‘one’ on the scoreboard that we’ve given away.
“So, it was one of those days that really frustrates me because more good work goes into that than we’ll be seeing [in terms of points].
“Rightly so, everyone will speak about the mistakes and the scoreline, that’s what we’re here for, so we need to make sure that the good work gets rewarded more often than it has. Four points, for me, should be what we’ve taken from the last two weeks and we’ve had to settle for one.”
Photo: TWTD
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