Derby County Reaction - Cherries I

Last updated : 24 February 2014 By Bournemouth Co-Ordinator

Manager Eddie Howe was disappointed with the defeat at the weekend, being quoted as saying after the match: "I thought we were excellent. Sometimes it’s very difficult in defeat to say that because you feel like you expect people to think you’re not telling the truth, but I couldn’t have been prouder of the players really. We have come to a really good ground and I thought we were very good defensively today. It’s taken a worldy free kick to beat us - I couldn’t see them scoring from open play. I thought our two centre halves and back four were very good, and it’s bitterly disappointing to be beaten on the back of a game that we should have won. All in all, I am very proud of the performance and I believe if we play like that for the rest of the season we will pick up a lot of points. We defended very well from the front. It has to be said the front two worked very hard and we put them under a lot of pressure when they had the ball, but we couldn’t get any rhythm going. We counter-attacked very well until that 18 yard box loomed and then we fell apart from that point onwards, but we got ourselves in some great positions. There were some overloaded situations that we should have done better with, and that’s an obvious thing and we’ve been saying it for a while. That’s the difference between the top and bottom sides. We have played them twice now and lost 1-0 in both games. It was very tight and we could have won both 1-0 and we would have six points more, but that’s why they are where they are and that’s why we are we are, and we need to improve".