EDDIE Howe shouldered the responsibility for rediscovering Cherries’ lost lustre but insisted his players must “deliver and respond”.

The Vitality Stadium boss admitted performance levels had been affected by “a very small percentage” having built up a sizeable cushion over the Premier League’s bottom three.

Last month’s victories over Southampton, Newcastle and Swansea all but secured safety ahead of a daunting run-in packed with some of English football’s biggest names.

But having failed to show their best against the likes of Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool since, Howe conceded their points total could have impacted on displays.

Quizzed on the solutions, Howe said: “Firstly, it has to come from me, definitely. I have to set the marker for what I expect. Secondly, the players have to deliver and respond to that demand.

“I think it is no coincidence that you see teams around 40 points, there is a whole group of us. Everybody is getting to that point and finding it very difficult to go again and we need to make sure we do that.

“The fixture list has been very unkind to us. Don’t get me wrong, you have to play everyone but we have all the big guns in a very tight timeframe so this was always going to be a difficult period.

“But that’s the Premier League, we need to work out ways to win.”

Howe refuted suggestions that his side had been caught cold during the early stages of matches and argued the manner in which Cherries have shipped a second goal so quickly after conceding had been a bigger worry.

“I would say there is a constant need for us to look at working better,” he added.

“There will be ebbs and flows, there will be times where you’re on top early in games, that will be the pattern and then teams will look at how they can get at you. You have to adapt to that challenge and that is where we are.

“We have to adapt our home performances slightly to get better results. That has been very evident to us and something to look at over the summer.

“The goals we’re conceding in consecutive minutes, they’re a concern for us. We need to end that pattern because with one goal, anything can happen. With two, you’re giving yourselves a mountain to climb.

“With anything, you can look at opponents but you have to look at yourselves first. There are definitely things for us to work on.”

Victory over deposed champions Chelsea today (3pm) would hand Cherries their first Premier League double and with it, guaranteed survival with three matches to spare.

“I don’t think we want to be waiting on other results,” added Howe. “I think it is important to finish the job we started for ourselves and that is the challenge I am going to set to the players.

“The desire has to be there to fight for everything, even if the league table says we can leave it until next week. We don’t want to leave it until next week, we want to finish it now.”