Saturday 23 December 2017 19:28, UK
Eddie Howe says Bournemouth are now heading into a key period of their season, following a 4-0 defeat at Manchester City.
The Cherries were outplayed for the majority of Saturday's clash at the Etihad Stadium, as a Sergio Aguero double and further goals from Raheem Sterling and Danilo sealed a comprehensive victory for the Premier League leaders.
The result meant Bournemouth slipped into the relegation zone - but Howe says after facing Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City in a row his men must now target victories from the upcoming matches against teams closer to them in the league. Bournemouth play West Ham, Everton and Brighton over the festive period.
"Those games will take on even more significance," said Howe. "We came here trying to get something but we knew it would have been incredibly difficult and we have to look at these games [against United, Liverpool and City] as one-offs because of the quality of opposition we were playing.
"We had an incredibly tough run but my hope is the players have come through it okay and we're ready to go into an important spell for us."
However, Howe is facing somewhat of an injury crisis right now with Bournemouth having six players out injured for this fixture, and Junior Stanislas hobbling off early on.
"I thought we did okay," said Howe. "It was a huge task for us today, not just the team we were facing but also the injuries we've got. We were okay in the game until we conceded the first goal, which was our own doing, and it was hugely frustrating with the game plan we had. From then on it is difficult.
"The second goal is the killer for us. We still had a go to try to chase it and then opened ourselves up to concede a couple more.
"I've not spoken to [Stanislas] but I think it's his hamstring feeling tight. We had a patched up team anyway and to lose another important player for us made it very difficult. It was a difficult afternoon."
