BOSS Eddie Howe admitted Ashley Barnes’s challenge which left Simon Francis needing stitches “wasn’t a great one”.

The Burnley frontman’s boot caught the Cherries captain in the head after just seven minutes during the hosts’ 1-0 defeat at Vitality Stadium.

Francis battled on wearing a bandage for the rest of the game – he required five stitches in total after the final whistle.

There was no punishment for Barnes from referee Martin Atkinson for that incident.

Asked for his verdict on the tackle, Howe said: “I don’t think it was a great challenge.

“I’d need to see it again but my initial view - it was quite close to us - was it wasn’t a great one.

“Franno has gone down to head it, I don’t know what part of Ashley’s hit Simon but it’s one of those things. You have to get on with it in the game.

“Simon got on with it and played pretty well in the match.”

He added: “That’s sort of what they (Burnley) try to create, those types of games. A bitty game, a lot of restarts a lot of stop-start action. We could never really get fluid.

“You always have to look at yourself first and we could have done better.”

A total of 34 free-kicks were awarded by man-in-the-middle Atkinson.

Howe said: “There were a lot of free-kicks. I think we were guilty of some needless mistakes in that respect.

“Every free-kick we made was going to go in our box. We then had to defend a long aerial ball, so we will kick ourselves with some indiscipline.

“I think from their side, that’s how they play, that’s what they try to create. We had to try to navigate our way through that better than we did. It’s another lesson learned.”