AFC Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola said his side lacked the offensive clarity they showed in games earlier in the season during last night’s 2-1 defeat to the Blues.

The 10th-placed Cherries have suffered a significant dip in form recently and are now without a win in five in the Premier League, have lost their last five home Premier League matches and exited the FA Cup to Manchester City at the weekend following another 2-1 reverse, also at the Vitality Stadium.

Quizzed on whether the slump has come as a shock to him, Iraola said: “I think we are five games without a win in the league, in games that I think we should have taken more points.

“When you are in a bad run, everything looks more difficult, more difficult to score. You need more chances, more volume and small things look like everything is happening against you.

“The minute before they scored, we have Alex [Scott] against the keeper and they clear it off the line.

“The penalty that they called for us, VAR said it was outside [the area], a little bit outside. Small things that probably when you are flying and everything looks easy, boom, there is a deflection, we score.

“Even to score today we needed finish, the save, the rebound, the second ball. It is not the clarity offensively that we've had in other moments of the season.”

Reflecting on what he sought to do to change that, the Spaniard added: “I think we've tried to improve our build-up. We put Marcos [Senesi], who is very good in this first phase.

“We've tried also different situations in the right-back position. Adam Smith, the plan was for him to play 45 because he played 20 the other day, 45 today, a little bit increasing his minutes with Lew [Lewis Cook], even with Dean [Huijsen] in some moments in that situation.

“Then we've started with in-swingers as the wingers with Antoine [Semenyo] and Dango [Ouattara].

“After, when we were controlling more, the game arriving more, we’ve changed and we put Dango left, Antoine and Brooksy interchange in those situations, even finish with two forwards. But it hasn't been enough to score and get points today.”

Iraola says that lack of attacking clarity is illustrated by their overall shots count to those which tested the keeper.

“I think we are not having the clarity now because today I think I've checked, we had 27 shots, and they have two shots on target,” he added.

“Obviously when you are playing in the opposition half, they have numbers, they defend well the box.

“The quality of the chances you have is not going to be very high because at the end they don't give you the space to attack.
“It's a matter of putting in good crosses, finding good spots, but it’s very tight inside the box.

“Shots from the edge. Even the shots we've had, we haven't been able to score. They blocked a lot and small things that don't make the opposition suffer, we need to get a lot.

“We're going to check the numbers, for sure, I haven't checked everything, the volume is there but it's not the clarity that we need to make the difference. Even the Alex [Scott] chance, that is very clear.”

TWTD

midastouch added 09:52 - Apr 3 He came across well in defeat last night on MOTD. Not all bitter and twisted like some of them can get. He kept the defeat in perspective. Seems a decent bloke.
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Steve_M added 10:02 - Apr 3 As with McKenna he isn't treating fans like idiots and explains what he thinks his team didn't do well enough. And also about how our sitting back a bit more stopped them playing a bit. More of this is welcome across the game.
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LeightonBuzzardBlue added 10:15 - Apr 3 Class manager, I'm sure the Cherries feel very lucky to have him. When you look at their squad, they're certainly punching above their weight
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FromReuserWithLove added 11:32 - Apr 3 “The penalty that they called for us, VAR said it was outside [the area], a little bit outside." I mean, that was never a foul let alone a penalty.
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