EDDIE Howe says he is not concerned by Cherries' failure to add to their ranks during the transfer window -– and the manager insists his squad is "strong enough" to avoid being dragged into trouble.

Howe confirmed he had enquired about bringing former loanee Nathan Ake back to the club – either on another temporary deal or on a permanent basis – but he claimed reports in the press suggesting an £18m offer had been lodged for Ake were "miles off the mark".

Talking after watching Cherries slump to a 2-0 defeat to Crystal Palace at Vitality Stadium, Howe also admitted his team's confidence has been dented by their recent downturn in results.

Howe told the Daily Echo: "It’s been a difficult window and I’m not going to hide from that.

"The pool of players we have to recruit from is small and it’s always a delicate balance... anyone can spend money, anyone can recruit players, but we wanted to recruit players that could make a difference to the team.

"That’s incredibly difficult in this window with the finances we have. I’m not going to complain about it because I love the squad we have.

"I think it’s good enough, I think it’s strong enough. If you look at our bench (against Palace) you can see the quality on it so I have no concerns.

"We had discussions with Chelsea (about Ake).

The bid reported in the media was miles off the mark, but we enquired about the opportunity to bring him back, either on loan or on a permanent deal and that was declined."

On his side's reverse against Palace – a result that extended their winless home run to a fourth match, and which means they have won just once in seven top-flight outings – Howe said their tentative performance demonstrated his players' wavering confidence.

"We’re going through a difficult period, confidence levels have been knocked slightly and that was evident in our performance," said Howe.

"Every setback is tough to take because it’s not in the plan.

"But you have to take it, you have to be grown up enough to handle that when you’re in this job.

"We’ll analyse the game and try to pinpoint the areas we need to improve. It’s obvious we had a lot of possession tonight but didn’t do enough with that.

"I think you could see confidence was slightly knocked. There were a lot of sideways and backwards passes, which we didn’t plan for – and we don’t want.

"But when you’re not feeling good about yourself it’s the easiest thing to do, so we obviously need to address that.

"They’re (the players) human beings at the end of the day and our performance levels have been a little but inconsistent in recent weeks.

"Our results haven’t been what we expect or what we want. That’s the reality.

"There’s only one way I know to get out of that and that’s to refind our touch on the training ground and get the swagger back in the players."

Charlie Daniels was replaced in the team to face Palace by Brad Smith, and Howe confirmed his first-choice left-back had sustained an injury during training.

The Cherries boss is, though, expecting to have the 30-year-old available again sooner rather than later.

"Charlie took a knock in training," added Howe.

"Initially he had a scan and there was no serious damage to the knee, but he wasn’t quite fit today.

"He went to see a specialist in the week. We’re not quite sure how long he’s going to be out.

"We don’t think it’s serious but we don’t know whether he’ll be fit for Everton (on Saturday) yet."