Saturday 17 September 2016 20:44, UK
Despite losing 4-0 to Man City, Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe still felt his players performed well at the Etihad on Saturday.
The Premier League leaders produced a scintillating display to maintain their 100 per cent start to the new Premier League campaign, and this without in-form striker Sergio Aguero, who was suspended for the clash.
However, Howe was disappointed with the nature of City's opening two goals scored by Kevin De Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho, both of which were avoidable in his opinion.
"It was a tough day," said Howe. "Man City to their credit I thought were excellent and we did fear that if they got into top gear it was always going to be difficult.
"That said, the first two goals from our perspective, the first one went under our wall and the second one is from our set piece, so the nature of the goals is the disappointing thing.
"I think you are always looking to learn and when you play against the very best, your learning is obviously accelerated."
As well as Bournemouth's at times sloppy defending, Howe - who handed a first Premier League start to midfielder Jack Wilshere after his season-long loan from Arsenal - was also critical of his team's wastefulness in front of goal.
"But there were moments in the game, we had our chances, we had some good counterattacking opportunities in the first and second half, but did not make the most of those," he said. "So we go away disappointed with our overall performance.
"You always have to look for the positives and there were some moments in the game when I felt we did OK."
In particular, Howe thought his players gave up possession too often in key areas of the field, especially in the first half when Wilshere lost the ball in the lead-up to City's opening goal.
"But they were not enough and when playing against the quality of opposition we were, we needed to be better on the ball, that was for sure," said Howe. "I felt we turned the ball over too much, especially in the first half."
In the end, though, Howe admitted that his side had just come up against superior opposition on the day.
"Man City are an impressive team, we knew that in the build-up to the game, they have done very well in their games so far and they caused us problems," he said.
"But that was not helped by us not being at our very best and I think you have to give them a lot of credit."
