TYRONE Mings admitted Cherries should have been harder to beat at West Brom on Saturday and insisted the players "cannot hide" from their current situation.

Cherries led through Joshua King's fifth-minute penalty in the West Midlands but ceded control of the match by conceding two goals before the midway point of the first half.

Baggies goalkeeper Ben Foster acrobatically saved from Mings deep into stoppage time to condemn Cherries to a fourth successive defeat – a run that has left Eddie Howe's team hovering perilously close to the bottom three.

Mings told the Daily Echo: "We cannot hide from the situation we find ourselves in.

"We’re not picking up points and we’re conceding too many goals. We cannot get away from that fact.

"We are in a situation only we can get ourselves out of.

"We cannot do anything differently from what we are doing.

"We have to keep working hard, keep focused, stay together as a group and keep buying into the ideas and game-plan we are trying to execute."

Mings believed West Brom's scruffy goals – Craig Dawson's equaliser took a heavy deflection off Charlie Daniels and an Artur Boruc error presented Gareth McAuley with the winner – were symptomatic of the way Cherries' fortunes are currently falling.

But the defender accepted his side should have been more robust in their approach to protecting their early advantage.

"Once you score a goal, you want to shore things up, settle back into the game and keep them on the back foot," said Mings.

"But when you are in the situation we are in at the moment and results aren’t going for you, those things – a deflection firing into the far corner – seem to happen.

"I don’t think we let ourselves down on the physical side of things, we stood up to that test well. But we conceded two poor goals."

Howe has latterly been denied the services of some of his key performers.

Striker Callum Wilson will not feature again this season, while a combination of suspension and hamstring trouble has forced skipper Simon Francis out of four games since the turn of the year.

Nevertheless, Mings is backing his team-mates to pick up the slack and the 23-year-old is convinced his side possess the capacity to engineer an upturn in form.

"In situations like this, it does not take much to snap out of it," he added.

"Last season, when Max (Gradel), Callum and me were all injured, everybody wrote us off.

"But sometimes things like that draw the group closer together.

"I don’t think we were far off the pace at West Brom. I thought we matched them for 95 per cent of the game, at least – and were maybe better than them.

"It was a tough one to take but there is no point dwelling on it.

"In difficult times like this – with Callum and the captain both injured – other people have to step up to the plate and bring the group closer together."