How big a setback was Bournemouth's defeat at Forest?

Eddie Howe needs to get his team back on the right track

Bournemouth slumped to defeat at Nottingham Forest on Wednesday, putting a dent in their automatic promotion hopes.

For any team chasing promotion any defeat will come as a setback, but how much of an impact will a midweek loss in the East Midlands have on Bournemouth?

The Cherries are now without a win in their last four after draws with Derby and Huddersfield and defeat to promotion rivals Brentford and Forest, who are not totally out of the running for a top-six spot themselves.

Eddie Howe's men made a fine start to the season and they are the top scorers in the Championship with 67 goals after 33 games, with Derby and Watford both on 66.

However, the Dean Court side have now lost ground on the Rams and Middlesbrough, who currently occupy the top two places, and have fallen behind Ipswich, as all three sides picked up wins on Tuesday.

Bournemouth are four points adrift of Boro and six behind Derby in the battle for automatic promotion and boss Howe feels his side need to improve on their decision making.

The Cherries enjoyed the majority of possession and took a lead through Andrew Surman at the City Ground, but goals from Jamaal Lascelles and Henri Lansbury condemned them to defeat.

Speaking to the BBC, Howe said: "As much as you want to score, you've still got to make the right decisions with the ball.

"If you look at the top teams playing at the very highest level they're still making good decisions and acting composed, and that's probably where we've made mistakes in the last two games."

Howe's side have been hailed for their attacking play this season and an apparent 'it doesn't matter how many you concede providing you score more' attitude, but with just four wins in their last 10 league games they need to rediscover their form quickly if they are to maintain a promotion challenge.

The defeat at Forest doesn't have to be a killer blow for the Dorset outfit in terms of their promotion hopes, however - providing they get back to winning ways at the weekend.

The next two fixtures are arguably more important and crucially they are both at home, against Blackburn on Saturday and Wolves on Tuesday.

Blackburn are 10th in the Championship table and 15 points behind the Cherries, meaning victory for Howe's men on Saturday would effectively end any hopes Rovers have of closing the gap.

Wolves are only five points behind Bournemouth at this point, although that could change before they meet, making that clash at Dean Court a massive fixture in terms of the fight for the play-offs.

In any season most sides will suffer setbacks and the defeat at Forest was definitely one for Bournemouth. Considering how they dominated possession - with a staggering 76% in their favour - they will see that loss as two points dropped.

However, as the top of the league is so tightly packed the loss at the City Ground doesn't have to be a huge blow for the promotion chasers.

Following the visit of Wolves the south coast club have three very winnable fixtures, on paper at least, against Fulham (a), Blackpool (h) and Cardiff (a).

If they can stay in touch with Boro and Derby over the course of the next five games they will then go into what could be a huge clash against Middlesbrough, and significantly that clash at the end of March is at home, where they have lost just three times in the league this term.

Bournemouth are just six points behind league leaders Derby and with 13 games to go and 39 points to play for, as well as games against Boro and Ipswich ahead of them, a defeat at Forest cannot be considered a huge setback, providing they respond.

Howe admits four games without a win isn't ideal but he is confident his side have the right mentality to respond and get their promotion bid back on track.

"We can either fade away or comeback strongly - we want to comeback strongly," he added.