Patrick Dorgu struck in the first-half for United's 1-0 win.
Howe told ChronicleLive afterwards: "Very rarely have I gone away and thought the players haven’t wanted to win or tried to or given everything. You could see today we came with the right attitude the right mentality the right motivation but we are a team who are lacking in confidence.
"We are finding a way to concede goals and we are not scoring goals and it is a deadly mix for us."
He added: "But I think we are closer to find the consistency we crave. We have to be strong because I think we are close.
"You can talk and train but it is winning games. This is a team that has got real quality, it has got good character."
Howe concedes their lack of clean sheets this season is becoming a major issue.
He added, "We are not ducking the issue, but we just need to look at the performances in isolation. If it is home or away, I don’t care. Look back to the Chelsea game, for 45 minutes, we were excellent.
"We need to keep more clean sheets, we haven’t kept one in a long time in the Premier League and that is not good enough. And we need to score more goals."