DAN Gosling described as a “moment of madness” Steve Cook’s costly handball against Norwich and added: “He feels like he’s let everyone down.”

Gosling started alongside Cook in the 1-0 defeat at Carrow Road and revealed how the centre-half apologised to his team-mates following his 31st-minute dismissal.

Norwich were given the chance to open the scoring from the penalty spot when Ondrej Duda's goal-bound effort was stopped by the hand of a diving Cook – who had picked himself up off the deck to palm the effort onto the post.

After the Hastings-born defender was handed the first red card of his career, Teemu Pukki slotted home from 12 yards for his 10th league goal of the campaign.

Giving his take on the decisive moment, Gosling told the Daily Echo: “He’s apologised to everyone. It’s only words. That was what he said. All you can do is apologise. It’s a moment of madness.

“In hindsight you may have let it go in, because it was going in - 1-0 with 11 men.

“But it’s probably an instinct thing which, even if the ref didn’t see it, with VAR you’re never going to get away with that anyway.

“He’s really apologetic and sad and he feels like he’s let everyone down.”

Cherries have now lost their past four Premier League games without scoring and sit three points adrift of top-flight safety in 19th spot.

“It’s tough,” said former Everton man Gosling.

“The big positive is that we created three or four good chances, which we haven’t been doing in recent games.

“The one positive we can take and it’s hard to find many really. You don’t really want to come away losing games and then looking just at the positives because that’s not enough.

“But the one thing is we did create chances and I’m a bit tired of saying ‘on another day’ because we can’t keep saying ‘on another day’.

“Right now it’s tough but hopefully in the next few games we can create those chances and, most importantly, take them.”

Another hammer blow comes to Eddie Howe's side as they will be without suspended Cook for Tuesday’s visit of Brighton (7.30pm) – along with their continued injury concerns.

“We’re short of defenders, we’re short of bodies all over the park really,” said Gosling.

“Everyone knows the injuries that we’ve had and it doesn’t help the cause. But it’s a time to stick together even more.

“We can’t blame each other. This is what we’ve got, these are the cards we’ve been dealt and we’re good enough.

“That’s the bottom line. We just have to believe that and get that first goal and that first win in a while and hopefully breed new confidence in the squad.”