Eddie Howe has issued an update on Sven Botman, Emil Krafth and Anthony Gordon after all three were taken off in last night’s devastating defeat at Chelsea.
The good news is that Botman’s withdrawal was a ‘planned substitution’, with Howe confirming that he was never going to play more than 45 minutes, shutting down any concerns that he’d aggravated his knee issue.
Krafth was ‘too sore to continue’ and has a ‘nasty gash on his shine’ after a late challenge from Levi Colwill went unpunished in the final minutes of the first half.
It’s a similar story for Gordon, who was unable to shake off a knock suffered from Moises Caicedo’s challenge down the back of his calf, which Howe believes should’ve been a red card. He is ‘very sore’ and was unable to sprint before being replaced by Matt RItchie, so hopefully he and Krafth are able to recover in time for Saturday’s trip to Luton.
Here’s what Howe had to say on all of the above, followed by a clip of his post-match press conference in full:
“Botman was a planned substitution after 45 minutes, a nice step for him. I thought he did very well. Krafth and Gordon got knocks.
“Emil was too sore to continue. He’s got a nasty gash on his shin, which is quite sore at the moment. Anthony is the same.
“I thought it was a really poor tackle on him (from Caicedo). It was the type of tackle you don’t want to see, taking one of our attacking players out of the game. He’s very sore at the minute.
“Should it have been a red card? It’s too difficult to say live and I haven’t seen it again, but I’m taking opinion from other people and they say they thought it was.”
I’m not a fan of our defensive game. It’s a bit like parking the bus under Rafa, I’m just never really comfy with it.
While Chelsea seemed to have the better passing game I can’t help thinking that occasionally switching to all out attack would get us better results against the better teams.
Daveys **** mate(Quote)