Gary O’Neil insists it was “no fluke” his Bournemouth side inflicted yet more away-day misery on Liverpool.
Philip Billing’s 28th-minute goal was enough for the rock-bottom Cherries to send the Reds tumbling to a 1-0 defeat on Saturday afternoon.
Bournemouth had been smashed 9-0 at Anfield earlier in the season in a defeat that matched the record suffered in the Premier League era. But they survived a Mohamed Salah missed penalty in the second half to move clear from the foot of the table.
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“We deserved it,” said O’Neil, whose side had lost 3-2 at Arsenal and 4-1 at home to Manchester City in recent weeks. “I’m just pleased for the boys. The performance was no fluke, the performance in the last three games have been very good against top opposition. Fine margins can’t always go against you like they had been.
“A clean sheet against one of the best teams in England who went into the game on the back of scoring seven, it showed the effort we put in.
“We haven’t used the gameplan we used before. That was a new gameplan because of Liverpool. Generally they will be specific for the opposition. The Man City and Arsenal ones worked well and today worked well. Like I said to the boys at Wolves, we have to just keep going.”
O’Neil, who had previously worked on the coaching staff at the Liverpool Academy, added: “We got a bit fortunate with the penalty miss, I haven’t seen it back so not sure whether it was or wasn’t, but after the stuff that has gone against us we were due something today.
“To suffer the late goal at Arsenal, I was asked so many times if the boys would suffer a hangover from it, and there’s your answer.
“We were very down at the time and I reminded them of the work they put in and they were extremely unlucky for it to go against them.”
Bournemouth midfielder David Brooks made the bench for the first time since September 2021 having recovered from cancer.
And O’Neil said: “I was absolutely delighted for him. We still need to be realistic with what he can do at the moment. I was desperate to get him on but the game didn’t really go that way. He was delighted yesterday when he was told and the boys were delighted as well.”
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