Toon handed early boost ahead of tonight's cup clash as Bournemouth issues go public

Ahead of our game against Bournemouth tonight, Cherries boss Gary O’Neil has revealed that ‘a real bad virus’ has made its way through the team with some of the players missing up to 10 days of training.

The 39-year-old has also claimed that he was missing around ‘eight to 10’ players last week, with some of their symptoms running into this week - leaving him with a host of late fitness calls to make ahead of the 7.45pm kick off in the Carabao Cup.

Bournemouth currently sit in 14th in the Premier League, just three points above the bottom three, and it is very much expected that their goal this season will be to stay up rather than to progress in the cups. 

O’Neil is still hoping to name a strong side as they make the trip up to the North East, but it seems their pre-match preparations haven't exactly gone to plans after a virus hit the camp

Eddie Howe on the other hand will be looking to capitalise on the unfortunate situation at Bournemouth and trying to secure a place in the quarter finals with a fairly injury-free squad. 

Here’s what O’Neil had to say on the virus: "We've had a tricky last 10 days. A real bad virus went through the group, so we'll have to make a few last-minute calls on a few. The boys, some of them have missed real long spells with it, so up to 10 days. Some of them have missed training. It was a nasty one.

"I think we had eight to 10 missing last week, and that has run over a little bit into this week. But yeah, we have enough available and I'm hopeful that when we get there we'll look a little bit better."