Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe has revealed that his side are using their 5-1 defeat against Manchester City as a "learning experience".

The Cherries have endured a tough start to life in the Premier League by only registering victories against West Ham United and Sunderland in their opening nine matches, while also losing several key players to injury.

However, Howe is adamant that his side still have to be able to compete with the bigger teams in the division and cannot afford more displays like their hammering at the Etihad Stadium.

Howe told reporters: "From our perspective, this season was always going to be really tough and an incredible learning experience, not just for myself but the rest of the squad. Everyone will see the experience of City as a negative, but we are trying to embrace it as a positive to see how far we have to go to be competitive with these teams.

"You can't take away the instincts of the players. We were 4-1 down and tried to attack, but the alternative is to sit on your 18-yard box and put your tin hats on, and then you are maybe looking at worse.

"But you can't find yourselves 2-0 down after 10 minutes and not expect a tough afternoon from that position. Hopefully we have learned lessons from it. We did make tweaks before the game and we will continue to make tweaks until we get it right."

Bournemouth play Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League on Sunday.