MARCUS Tavernier said the Cherries side were frustrated to concede early goals in each half against Brighton – whilst also not being patient enough to make the most of their extra man.
Tavernier played all 90 minutes of the game against the Seagulls and was a part of the AFC Bournemouth forward line that were guilty of missing chances in a game where they had a man advantage for half an hour.
Brighton scored after four minutes in each half with two excellently worked goals, while the Cherries got one goal back late on through a David Brooks stoppage time strike.
Speaking after the game, Tavernier told the Daily Echo that he felt Bournemouth were not patient enough to exploit their man advantage after Carlos Baleba was sent off for the visitors.
“Obviously they're down to 10 men, so you feel like you can force the ball into the box or force some passes because we're outnumbering them,” the Englishman said.
“But we didn't really give time to move their team, to create opportunities for ourselves.
“We focused more on getting the ball in the box and by the end, we got a goal from it, but we didn't quite relax into that third. But when you're chasing a game, these things happen.
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“You're desperate to score a goal, and that's what we were. We were 2-0 down.
“So it was a tough one and I'm sure we can work on that when we're up against a team with 10 men to recycle the ball and get the ball into the box in different ways.”
Tavernier said it was frustrating to concede the two goals so early into each half.
“I thought we came out in both halves really well, and then they created split chances and put them away,” he said.
“But that's the Premier League for you. If you're not focused for a split second, you can concede. And we were on the receiving end of that today, and something we can look back on and focus on to tighten up on the start of“The manager’s touched on it before and first 15 minutes of games to be more at it, as you would say, and I'm sure that's something we can do for the remainder of the season.”
The Cherries missed a number of chances to score throughout the game but were not clinical enough, with Antoine Semenyo striking the crossbar with the final kick of the match in what have been a sensational late equaliser.
But it wasn’t to be and the side rued their lack of clinical finishing throughout the 90 minutes.
“On another day, Ant scores that goal and he might win the game, but we can't take it as that,” Tavernier said.
“You take it as the game finishes and unfortunately, we weren't good enough today and we got beat by the team which took their chances in the end.”
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