CHERRIES boss Eddie Howe insisted it had been "impossible" for Jack Wilshere to have any kind of impact against Manchester City.

Wilshere made his first league start for Howe in Saturday's 4-0 defeat at the Etihad, but struggled to gain a foothold in the match as Pep Guardiola's side stormed to a convincing victory thanks to goals from Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, Kelechi Iheanacho and ?lkay Gündo?an.

The Arsenal loanee was at fault for the opening goal, his foul on Nolito handing City a free kick just outside the penalty area which De Bruyne buried with aplomb.

Howe said: "It was difficult for Jack because we want to see him in the final third and he didn't get there enough. It was impossible to see his best qualities, but the minutes will do him good and once he understands how we want to play, he will be an important player for us.

"You can't blame one individual. As a team, we didn't function and didn't give our attacking players any scope to get into the game because we were penned in our half. It's very difficult for creative players when that is the case.

We said when we signed Jack we said we wanted to get him in the opposition's half and see his creative ability. If you put him in their team you would obviously see a different performance from him."

Despite City's dominance, Howe felt his side had some "good moments".

He added: "I hoped we could stay in the game and the free kick was a disappointing one from our point of view. I will analyse that.

"The second goal really hurt because at 1-0 down we were still in the game. It was our set play and we had a chance to score, yet five seconds later the ball was in our net. But they were better than us today.

"I look at the performance and overall I was disappointed today because I feel we can do better than that. I give them a lot of credit because of the way they played, but really I can only look at us and the way we played.

"We had some really good moments and that's the frustrating thing. We had counter attack opportunities in the first half so there were moments but we needed to be more clinical.

"When you come against such technical players playing the way we have done historically, you become exposed. There's no right or wrong but you just have to try to make it work."