GARY O’Neil refused to officially rule Marcus Tavernier out for the rest of the season, the winger still awaiting full diagnosis on the severity of his hamstring injury.

Tavernier was substituted during last week’s win over Southampton, with a third hamstring concern of the season.

The 24-year-old sat out Sunday’s big win over Leeds United and is set to also miss the visit of Chelsea tomorrow.

Asked if we will see Tavernier in a Cherries shirt again this season, head coach O’Neil said: “We’re still not clear on exactly how long it would be.

“Even if we were scrapping for points and desperate to stay in the Premier League, I’m still not sure. We haven’t had enough of the information back to let you know exactly when it would be.

“But, of course, now that the situation has changed, there will be no rush.

“If it’s three weeks that he should be out and we need to take four, we’ll take four. Whereas before it was like ‘right, it’s three weeks, let’s get him back for this game, let’s see if he can have an impact again’. Obviously that has changed.

“My real focus at this moment, if I’m honest, with Tav is to make sure he is absolutely spot on by July 1 and we can get a real, good pre-season into him.

“But that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the end of him this season. It might be that it’s a couple of weeks and he’s feeling fantastic and we’ll see him back on the pitch.”

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