AFC Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe has shared his thoughts following the Cherries’ 2-1 win over Stoke this afternoon.

Xherdan Shaqiri opened the scoring just five minutes in, but it was a second-half comeback from the hosts that earnt the three points for Howe’s side.

And the Cherries boss certainly had plenty to be pleased about, addressing his thoughts in the post-match press conference. He touched upon the following points:

On the perfomance…

It was a totally different game to the Chelsea one. There, everything went right for us, but here nothing seemed to go right in the opening part of the game.

We conceded early and Steve Cook went off injured so it wasn’t easy. I thought Stoke played very well, they made it very difficult for us. But, we grew into game and in the second half I felt that we were much better.

On Stoke…

The size of Stoke’s squad was big and we knew that set-plays would be difficult. [Xherdan] Shaqiri took his goal well and it was a difficult moment in the game for us.

It was key that we didn’t concede a second because we knew that we’d come strong at some point. At half-time, we changed things tactically because it was hard to go through centrally with Stoke playing a holding midfielder.

On the run…

Today, mentally, was a big challenge. We beat Chelsea on Wednesday and came here on a Saturday so it was a quick turnaround.

We’ve got a really good feel about the group and there’s a great spirit. We have a good talented group to build from.

Would we have come back from being a goal down earlier in the season? I’m not sure but we’re in the middle of this run now. In the back of your mind, it makes you feel like you can do this.

We’ve done it a lot in this run and the challenge is for me to maintain that.

On the individuals…

Lys [Mousset] came on and changed the feel of the game.

Full credit to Ryan Fraser too. It’s one thing playing at full-back, but it’s another playing at right back. I thought he handled himself very well.