Tindall: Challenge is Automatic Promotion

AFC Bournemouth assistant manager Jason Tindall believes that automatic promotion from League One is now a realistic challenge to set the squad.

Tindall returned to Dean Court in October alongside manager Eddie Howe after 21 months with Championship side Burnley.

On the day the duos return was announced, the Cherries were sitting 21st in League One with just 8 points from 11 games, with one league win all season and having suffered first round defeats in both the Football League Cup and Football League Trophy.

A rut of four consecutive defeats, had seen the side slip into the relegation places and the Cherries were just 4 points from sitting bottom of the table.

In mid-October with a quarter of the season gone any hopes of promotion looked slim, the Cherries were 11 points behind then sixth placed side Crawley Town and 19 points behind top of the table Tranmere Rovers.

But since that date, the Cherries have gone twelve games unbeaten, a run of form that has seen the side progress to the third round of the FA Cup to face Premier League side Wigan Athletic and in League One the Cherries have taken 24 points from a possible 30, with seven victories.

The Cherries have climbed 12 places in League One to ninth, ahead of Crawley, 4 points behind sixth place and are now only 8 points behind top of the table Tranmere.

With still over half of the season remaining the challenge has now been set to secure automatic promotion to the Championship.

Tindall told afcb.co.uk...

"We didn`t expect to get off to such a great start, We have gone 12 games unbeaten and all the players have been fantastic. They have put in so much hard work to achieve that run...'

'...If we had drawn on Saturday (against Scunthorpe), it would have been three points from nine and we would have been disappointed with that. I think that shows just how far we have come in such a short space of time. We got the win so it`s five points out of nine, and that doesn`t look too bad.

"We want to build on it and our aim is to continue the unbeaten run until the end of the season. We do that and we can get automatic promotion and that is the challenge we have set ourselves...'

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