AFC Bournemouth headed into the final game of the season against Stoke City with a Championship play-off place already secured. What was at stake was a potential fourth-place finish and some momentum to take into the play-offs and a chance of promotion back to the Premier League.
With that in mind, on the back of two consecutive defeats, AFC Bournemouth head-coach Jonathan Woodgate revered back to his favoured XI, including Lloyd Kelly who returned from injury.
Unfortunately, things just didn’t click for the Cherries, something that has had numerous times with this group of players of the past season and something that has cost them automatic promotion. Will it cost them in the play-offs? AFC Bournemouth now face Brentford over two-legs in the hopes of reaching the Championship Play-Off Final at Wembley at the end of the month.
Man of the match against Stoke
Carter-Vickers
Lerma
Kelly
Someone else
After the match, understandably all eyes were on the play-offs and Woodgate told Sky Sports…
“We’ll be the underdogs, it’s all on them [Brentford] as the favourites but we’ll give it our best shot. It’s massive for the football club. It’s massive for the players. It’s massive for myself.
“When I came in the objective was to finish in the play-offs and we’ve done that by seven points. If you’re winning seven games out of 10 then you are doing OK.”
Despite this XI appearing to be his first-choice team, Woodgate insisted that there was room for someone to break into the starting line-up for the play-offs.
Speaking to the Daily Echo, Woodgate added…
“I wouldn’t say (it was) my best side, there’s a couple of places up for grabs.
“We just found it difficult to break them (Stoke) down. We didn’t play with any real intensity.
“We need to move the ball quicker, that’s one thing we need to do which we didn’t do. But we’ll look to improve on that.”
His job was to get Bournemouth in to the top 6 and he's done it 👊
Jonathan Woodgate tells @kristemple that today's game is behind them and it's all focus on Brentford 🔊👇 #afcb 🍒 pic.twitter.com/tAeDgGjZL9
— BBC Radio Solent Sport (@solentsport) May 8, 2021
https://twitter.com/lloydkelly4/status/1391049547103756288?s=20
"We know we have to do better"
Listen to @lloydkelly4 with @kristemple after the 2-0 defeat to Stoke 🔊👇 #afcb pic.twitter.com/nX3xTvR8lO
— BBC Radio Solent Sport (@solentsport) May 8, 2021
AlGard wrote…
Don’t panic!
We spent most the game trying not to put a tackle in and getting injured.
I think we have come through unscathed.
On to the play offs.
A different ball game.
Brentford are bottlers.
We are not good enough to go up.
Could be a great couple of games.
RobTrent wrote…
My 46 game assessment
Firstly, watching a rubbish performance in the stadium is so much better than watching it on a screen, and there have been plenty this year. I cant wait to get back.
Looking at how Brentford have gone about the season, we just don’t seem to have been up for the challenge. There have been great results, and really good runs, but overall, the football hasn’t been great. Today seemed to be a return to the tippy tappy football that was so boring earlier this year.
It’s quite surprising, and a bit demoralising, to think we only finished sixth in this division. We had mostly good results against every one of those teams above us… except for Brentford.
And what of the next two games?
Well, this is purely irrational supporter superstition, but I’m happier going into the games with the chance to break a losing streak rather than a winning one. I’m also convinced, irrationally, that we can’t continue our losing streak against Brentford.
