The Ox got another start in our win against Bournemouth on Monday and spoke after the match about the importance of turning around our earlier defeat against Southampton.

On Boxing Day, just as everyone thought it was okay to start considering putting down the alcohol, Arsenal decided to throw a spanner in the works. A 4-0 loss to anyone should not be happening at this stage if we’re challenging for the title and although these things do happen, it was crucial that we turned it around.

In the past, one bad result has been the sign of a few more to come and that was my main worry after the loss at St. Mary’s. Luckily, this team is stronger than I gave them credit for, and they turned it around against the Cherries.

The Ox opened up after the match about why it was so importance to bounce back.

“You need to build momentum,” he said.

“It’s all about getting the right results and as many results as possible from here.”

He added later, “We know we’re capable of winning games. The boss said to us that the team that lost at Southampton is no different to the one that beat Manchester City at home.

“From day to day, we need to turn it around if we have a bad result, which we did today. We need to turn that around and we got the right result.”

The forward is right. If we’d not got a win, the mental blow could have been even greater. As strong as this team is growing, we still appear sensitive (a bit like the fans, eh?) and another poor result could have been catastrophic for our league campaign.

Fortunately, this isn’t the case.