Bristol City boss Dean Holden has ordered his players not to feel too sorry for themselves about their 1-0 loss at Bournemouth on Wednesday night, ahead of Saturday’s home clash with Norwich City.

The Robins were second ahead of the midweek Championship games but a fourth match without a win has seen them slip to sixth, ahead of the Canaries only on goal difference.

“Nobody will pick us up, we have to do that ourselves,” Holden said. “Did we deserve more? I think we did but we didn’t get it.”

Arnaut Danjuma’s classy finish in the 81st minute settled a competitive game in which both teams had three shots on target.

Holden, speaking to his club’s official website, continued: “We switched off once in the second half, 10 minutes from time, and we’ve been punished for it. We had gilt-edged chances in the first half, we’ve come to one of the best teams in the division and absolutely dominated the first half.

“We had Famara (Diédhiou) and Antoine (Semenyo), Tomas’ (Kalas) header cleared off the line, Tyreeq (Bakinson) went through and the goalkeeper made a great save but Bents (Dan Bentley) has had nothing to do.

“We knew they’d come out in the second half, we knew they’d get a reaction because they’ve a very good team. They had shots from distance without troubling Bents. We switch off once, they take their chance and this was a performance which deserved more. We have to move on.

“The lads gave everything, the first half performance was outstanding with some of our play. We came to a team who were in the Premier League recently and we had all of the play in the first half. If you don’t take the goal anything can happen.”

The defeat followed a 1-1 home draw with Swansea on Saturday, thanks to a late equaliser, and a 1-0 defeat to Middlesbrough at Ashton Gate prior to that.

“We have to keep working to improve.” Holden added. “There’s a game Saturday lunchtime so we have to recover quickly and get our minds focused on that. You can’t feel sorry for yourself for too long, we take this on the nose and get on with it.”