EDDIE Howe praised the reaction of Mark Travers to losing his spot in Cherries’ Premier League line-up, stating how he has been “really impressed by his outlook”.

The Irish goalkeeper played the final two top-flight matches of the 2018-19 campaign, but is yet to make a matchday squad in the league this term with Aaron Ramsdale and Artur Boruc selected instead.

However, Travers did return to eye-catching effect last week, keeping a clean sheet and saving three penalties in shoot-out victory over Forest Green Rovers in the Carabao Cup.

That followed up an impressive display for the club’s under-21s side at Canford Park Arena in a friendly against Oxford earlier in August.

Travers, 20, is currently away from Dorset as part of the Republic of Ireland squad and could make his senior international debut tomorrow against Switzerland in a Euro 2020 qualifier at Aviva Stadium (7.45pm).

Discussing Travers’s approach to this campaign, Howe told the Daily Echo: “Mark’s a great lad. Very, very driven, wants to do well, wants to play, wants to express himself and show how good he is.

“He played for the under-21s and did very, very well. Really impressed by his outlook and I rate him very highly as a goalkeeper as I’ve said many times before.

“It’s really good to see that goalkeeping team and unit pushing each other.

“Mark’s very mature. I think he knows that the main thing at his age at the moment is to keep improving, make sure you come into the building every day focused on improvement and not necessarily focused on what number I am in the pecking order and all that stuff that you can’t affect.

“You can only affect the improvement and as long as at his age he is improving every day, he’s going to have a great career.”

Travers missed a chunk of pre-season due to a thumb injury sustained on international duty, with Howe admitting that was a factor in his decision to opt for Ramsdale to start the campaign.

But the Cherries boss insists the Irish stopper has responded in the perfect way.

Howe said: “Naturally you want Mark to be disappointed, but you want that disappointment to then be focused in motivation to make sure he tries to achieve his goals in whatever timespan that is.

“The worst reaction can be where it turns into a sulk or a disappointment that you then see a deterioration in the performance. Credit to Mark, he’s not reacted that way.”

Ramsdale led the celebrations after Travers’s penalty heroics against Forest Green, having also gone to watch him in action for the under-21s eight days earlier.

“That’s really nice,” said Howe.

“I think they are both individually really nice lads. Although they are competing for the same thing in effect, they will support each other and I think that’s really important.

“I think there’s an understanding that only one can play and then it’s up to the guy that is playing at that moment in time to support the others and Aaron did that really well.”