Speaking in the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Howe is quoted as saying: "We believe in ourselves but the players are realistic and we are all level headed enough to know there is still a long way to go. Everybody needs to be realistic because the squad is wafer thin. The bench against Fulham included only three of four players we can use against Bury and we had Alton Thelwell, who's not our player, at right-back. There are areas of concern and we have a few injuries at the moment so we need to be cautious. We need cover in certain positions because you can't go into a season with just one player in every position. We are still some way short and there is still a lot of work to be done. We've still got two-and-a-half weeks' training and anything can happen in that time so we're keeping our feet firmly on the floor. I was pleased with the performance against Fulham. I thought we were better in the second half than we were in the first because we kept the ball better. We were a little too direct early on and probably not good enough on the ball".