JOE Rothwell insists the “tight-knit group” at Cherries will “bounce back quickly” after a disappointing run of results following the World Cup break.

Summer signing Rothwell came off the bench, but could not spark a comeback as Cherries were beaten 2-0 at home by Crystal Palace on Saturday.

It marked a third straight defeat for Gary O’Neil’s men since the World Cup break, also failing to score in losses at Newcastle United and Chelsea.

Cherries have no time to dwell on the latest disappointment, with a quick turnaround to face a tough-looking trip to Old Trafford on Tuesday night, to take on in-form Manchester United.

After a slow start to the campaign, Erik ten Hag’s Red Devils have now lost just one of their past 15 matches, winning all three without conceding since coming back after the World Cup.

Discussing Cherries' recent run of results, Rothwell told the Daily Echo: “It’s probably the hardest league in the world.

“You can go on runs where you don’t score and you lose games, but we’ve got a really tight-knit group here and I’m sure we’ll bounce back quickly.

“Hopefully we can get something on Tuesday.”

Reflecting on the defeat to Palace, Rothwell added: “It was disappointing. Obviously it’s two goals that could have easily been avoided.

“But it just shows, if you switch off for just a little second in this league, you get punished for it.

“You switch off for that split second, as we’ve done (on Saturday) on two set-pieces and we’ve been punished for them both.

“But we’ll look back at them and look at where we can fix them.”

Boss Gary O’Neil labelled the display against the Eagles as the worst from his side since he took charge, first on an interim basis, back in August.

Asked what the message was at half-time after such a poor first 45 minutes, Rothwell said: “I wasn’t in there (the dressing room), but I imagine it was just a case of it wasn’t two goals where they’ve cut us open, it was kind of two mistakes.

“I think it would have just been a message of going out in the second half and throwing everything at them.

“I think the second-half performance was a lot better than the first.

"We’re going to have another tough game in a couple of days and we have to dust ourselves down and get ready to go again.”

Discussing his own performance, coming on for the final 20 minutes, Rothwell said: “A big part of my game is trying to get the ball and drive forward with it.

“That’s what the gaffer wanted me to do.

“I felt I did it on a couple of occasions and unfortunately we couldn’t quite get that goal back to bring us back into the game.

“But another tough game to come so we have to dust ourselves down quick and get ready to go again.”