13 February 2021

Jonathan Woodgate not thinking beyond mid-week as unbeaten start continues

13 February 2021

Jonathan Woodgate confirmed he would still be in charge of Bournemouth for Wednesday’s clash with Rotherham as he praised his side for being “solid” in their goalless Championship draw at Middlesbrough.

The interim manager made it three games unbeaten since he taking charge of the Cherries as they held out for a point at the City Ground.

“We are undefeated in three games and this might be an important point going forward,” he said. “I will be in charge for the Rotherham game on Wednesday, I am not thinking what will happen beyond that.”

Bournemouth did not muster a shot on target against Forest despite dominating possession for long spells, and only had four efforts overall.

But Woodgate was pleased with the performance against what he felt was tough opposition.

“Forest frustrated us, we could not break them down. They have not lost many games recently and we knew it was going to be tough,” he said.

“You can say that we did not work their keeper enough, but there were a few blocks and things, so statistics like that are not always a true reflection of things. The stats can show that you’ve had four shots on target, but they might all have been efforts that rolled into the keeper’s hands.

“We could be better creatively. But I thought we were solid. We just did not manage to produce those moments of magic up the other end of the pitch.”

Bournemouth lost skipper Steve Cook to injury after only five minutes.

“He has a groin injury, we are not sure how bad it was. But it was not ideal. Lloyd Kelly was very good when he came on and we were pleased to keep a clean sheet after that,” said Woodgate.

Forest came closest to winning the game, with former Bournemouth striker Glenn Murray having a header cleared off the line by Ben Pearson.

But boss Chis Hughton was pleased with a point as his side look to edge themselves away from the wrong end of the table.

“I thought we did really well. The best chance we had was through Glenn’s header, which was cleared off the line,” said Hughton. “We got into some really good positions through Anthony Knockaert. His flank was our most productive area. Unfortunately we did not get enough from it when we did get into those good positions.

“As a team we are finding some good momentum, we are certainly starting to see more of what we want from the team.

“There will be games where the opportunities you create are very few, particularly when you are up against the kind of side we were today, this kind of quality of opposition.

“We are a team in form and we were up against a team that had won their last two – it felt like a draw was a fair result.

“Bournemouth have very good players and – with a team that has come down from the Premier League, without losing too many of their players, and are able to bring on the subs that they are able to – they were always going to test us.

“This was a different kind of test, against a really good, technical team, who are very capable of scoring a lot of goals.”

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