AFC Bournemouth
This weekend marks a homecoming for Cherries star Marcus Tavernier.
The 23-year-old returns to Newcastle having departed the city for the south coast in the summer following his move from Middlesbrough.
A former member of Newcastle’s academy, Tavernier’s brother James also made two appearances for the Magpies.
Speaking ahead of the fixture, Marcus admits he’ll have some conflicted friends watching at St James’s Park on Saturday.
“Most of my friends are Newcastle fans so they want me to win the game, but they also want their team to win!
“I grew up in Newcastle and I lived there while I was at Middlesbrough, and I know a lot about the city and the club and everything to do with it.”
The versatile midfielder is expecting a tough game from Newcastle, who are under the management of former Cherries boss Eddie Howe.
“Newcastle have been great. You can see in the Man City game how well they played and that they’re going well about their business at the minute.”
With the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend being postponed as a mark of respect to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, following her passing aged 96, the Cherries have been afforded valuable time on the training pitch with interim head coach Gary O’Neil.
Tavernier is complimentary when speaking about O’Neil, admitting that the 39-year-old has added confidence to the dressing room.
“He’s been great since he’s taken over. He’s built us up a lot and he’s given us a belief in what we do and the way we can play in this division.
“I still feel like he’s the same. He’s joined in training a couple of times and he’s still the same, it’s just now whether I want to tackle him when he’s been on the ball! He’s been top.
“He’s definitely got some tekkers on him, I can still say that. You can see in the training session the way he’s pinging the ball left and right.”
Having arrived in the summer, Tavernier is starting to feel settled on the south coast and praised his Cherries teammates for the way he’s been welcomed.
“I can’t fault the boys in the way they’ve brought me into this team. It’s been great and they’ve allowed me to be myself.
“When I joined, Jaidon Anthony and Jordan Zemura invited me around to their house and cooked for me. They’ve cooked for me a few times; I think they made tacos on that occasion.
“The only thing I was scared of was if I had to sing on the first away trip but I’m glad I didn’t have to do that one!”
Tavernier pinpoints the togetherness in the camp as one of the reasons the Cherries were able to bounce back from the heavy defeat to Liverpool in August.
An inspired second-half performance at Nottingham Forest in the club’s most recent match, overcoming a two-goal deficit at half-time, highlighted the character in the squad.
“At Liverpool, we were at our lowest and we were thinking ‘what’s next?’. We played against Wolves and got a good result and defended well and we go to Forest, losing two-nil at half-time, come back and win the game and nothing could be better.
“You just saw the character in the boys for the reaction because we all know individually, and as a team, it wasn’t good enough [at Liverpool].
“The boys last year deserved to come here; it wasn’t by luck. It was over 46 games and we’ve earned the right to be in this division so we had to prove that in the next two games and we’ve done that, and hopefully we can do that for the rest of the games this season.
“We know that it’s going to take every player in the squad, and out of the squad, to make us go far in this division and we all have to stick together throughout the season.”
Interviews
Watch: Tavernier looks ahead to Newcastle trip
