GOALKEEPER Asmir Begovic voiced his support for defender Chris Mepham and insisted: “He will bounce back right away.”

Wales international Mepham came unstuck for the first goal in Cherries’ 2-1 defeat to Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.

Trying to play out from the back, Mepham received a pass from Cameron Carter-Vickers and attempted to play a first-time ball to Jefferson Lerma on the edge of the box.

But his attempted pass was seized upon by R’s midfielder Stefan Johansen – the Norwegian slamming past Begovic to strike home the opener.

But experienced stopper Begovic said Cherries would analyse the issue and insisted Mepham was “a big part of our team”.

Asked how he, as a senior player, could lift the defender following the mistake, Begovic told the Daily Echo: “He knows that’s part of the game.

“He’s a strong character, a really good player – things like that happen in football matches.

“I’ve no doubt he will bounce back right away and he’s a big part of our team.”

Defeat left Cherries eight points adrift of the top two in the Championship, with 15 league games of their season remaining.

Begovic added: “At this level you have to be switched on and do all the little things really well to give yourself that platform to try to win those games.

“Those little details went against us on Saturday and it’s something we need to correct going forward.

“Sometimes stuff like that happens. Everything happens so fast that it’s very difficult to say.

“It’s something we will analyse and unfortunately we couldn’t rescue the situation and we found ourselves 1-0 down.

“I thought we reacted well and controlled the whole game really strongly and there’s a couple of details we have to really address and clean up.”

Since the defeat to the R’s, Jonathan Woodgate has been appointed Cherries’ permanent head coach following a five-game spell in caretaker charge.

Speaking after the defeat at Loftus Road, the former England centre-back said he would speak with Mepham about the error.

Asked whether it was something that could happen when trying to play out from the back, Woodgate replied: “I think there’s areas. Everyone gets obsessed with this playing out at times and there’s passes that you make and you don’t make.

“When you make mistakes it’s important you learn from your mistakes and don’t do it again.

“Listen, I’ve made mistakes in my career playing – but it’s important you don’t keep doing the same mistake over and over again.

“He (Mepham) is a talented footballer, there is no getting away from that. He will be really disappointed about it.

“But all you’ve got to do is roll your sleeves up and get on with it and look to the next game.

“I will speak to him and see how he is. He is going to be disappointed.”