MAX Aarons was pleased to get an “intense” game against Chelsea under his belt to end his stop-start season.

While Cherries enjoyed a memorable campaign, achieving a club-record Premier League points tally, for Aarons he spent a lot of time watching on from the sidelines.

A £7million summer signing from Norwich City, Aarons made an instant impression with a string of energetic performances from right-back.

However, two hamstring injuries curtailed his progress, allowing Adam Smith to make that spot his own.

While Aarons returned to fitness in March, he had to wait until the final game of the season at Chelsea to be restored to the starting XI, his first start since defeat to Liverpool in January.

Aarons played 70 minutes of the 2-1 loss at Stamford Bridge.

It took his overall tally this season to 23 appearances for Cherries, totalling 1,419 minutes.

Reflecting on the season closer at Chelsea, Aarons told the Daily Echo: “On a personal level, it was my first start in a while.

“Coming into such an intense game, it was a real good game and I thought we played well on the whole.

“We’re disappointed to obviously lose the game as we had chances.”

The 24-year-old added: “The start to the season I had was brilliant.

“Obviously the injury I had just put a bit of a wedge in that good form and minutes that I was having.

“Then coming back from the injury, it’s always tough when you’ve had weeks out, the team are picking up momentum and the boys have been doing really well.

“So it’s just about with the boys doing well, it was giving me more time to make sure my body was in a really good place for coming back in.

“Then obviously (against Chelsea), getting that start, I was cramping up towards the end.

“We had to look after a few of our players then that hadn’t played many minutes.

“I’m looking forward to a really good pre-season now.”

Chelsea broke the deadlock courtesy of an astonishing strike from Moises Caicedo, finding the net from around the halfway line after Neto had rushed out of his goal to make a clearance.

Asked what he was thinking when the ball was flying through the air, Aarons said: “When you’re shooting from that far out, you’re not really expecting him to score.

“But it was a bit of quality from that far out and it’s gone in.”

Raheem Sterling put Chelsea 2-0 up, before Enes Unal’s shot flew in off Benoit Badiashile to give Cherries hope.

Dango Ouattara and Dominic Solanke had late chances to earn a draw, but Chelsea held on.