Written by Frankie Rudland (@rudlandfrankie)
Jason Tindall insists that only Bournemouth’s best will be enough to trump fellow Championship high-flyers Bristol City tomorrow night.
The Cherries return to home soil in search of a win after drawing two successive games 1-1 on the road to Cardiff and Watford respectively. However, Tindall was quick to reiterate that the Robins will prove a sizeable obstacle in their quest for all three points: “They’ve made a great start to the season, but having watched them play in some of their games it’s no surprise.
“They do things right, they try and play in the right way, similar to us – we’ll have to be at our very best to get the win.”
Bristol City are currently sitting pretty in second place, with the Cherries just a point adrift in fourth, a notable achievement for two managers who only made the step up from the assistant’s role at the start of the campaign.
And Tindall recognises that both he and Robin’s boss Dean Holden may have silenced a few critics with their early success: “Everyone has opinions on who should be the manager and who shouldn’t, but ultimately it’s the club’s job to go through the process of picking who they think is best for the job.
“Thankfully it was us (Tindall and Holden) and we’ve both got off to a good start, which I’m sure we’re both delighted with.”
One man who will have to put friendships aside for 90 minutes is Lloyd Kelly, who faces his former side for the first time since departing Ashton Gate for a sum of £13m last summer.
The Cherries defender remains a fan of his boyhood club, who he first signed for when he was only 12 years old, but Tindall remains confident that he’ll be able to put his emotions aside for tomorrow’s clash: “Lloyd did great there and he still has a lot of friends and family ties at the club so he’ll want to do well, he’ll want to win.
“A lot of time it does get the best out of players (playing their old sides) and they’ll come back to haunt you, just as Harry Wilson did against us for Cardiff.
“I’m sure tomorrow he’ll very much be a Bournemouth fan for 90 minutes and will be wanting us to win.”
Meanwhile, Bournemouth will be without their Columbian enforcer Jefferson Lerma, who was an early casualty of Saturday’s clash with Watford.
Tindall was forced to reshuffle and bring on Dominic Solanke after just 18 minutes as Lerma pulled up with a hamstring complaint, but the Bournemouth boss has since revealed that Lerma’s scan returned some positive news: “We’re pleased with the results of the scan, it’s not as serious as we initially thought it might be.
“We’re hoping to have him back with us within 7-10 days, when it’s a hamstring injury you’d usually expect worse but fortunately it’s not, the results are good and with the way that Jeff is we’re hoping to have him back soon.
“We need to manage the squad as best we can, we were aware that Jeff wasn’t 100% before the Watford match, he’s played a lot of football and did a lot of travelling with Colombia but we decided that we couldn’t rotate him with the personnel we had available.”
Tindall also confirmed that Adam Smith still has some swelling on his knee and will be assessed tomorrow to see if he is fit for selection, whilst David Brooks is continuing his recovery this week in training.
Bournemouth will take on Bristol City at 7.45pm on 28th October at the Vitality stadium. Follow Nerve Sport on Twitter for updates and more.