Can Harte do the covering job?

Ian Harte only joined AFCB in the summer and has yet to really make his mark on the team. While he has a hard task to get in the starting line up with the amazing Charlie Daniels in the form of his life starting ahead of him, the injury to Daniels could mean that Ian starts on Saturday. While training sessions and just being around the club will help Ian fit in, he will need to play games and I am sure he based part of his decision on coming the club feeling that he would get opportunities.

The Watford game was not the great start he had hoped to make. There was too much space between him and Cook and Watford exploited the gap to devastating effect. At times I felt it was like watching Marcos Painter again from last season. With Daniels picking up an injury though, Harte has to either work out what went wrong or Eddie could move Cook over to the left back position perhaps with Ward and Elphick in the middle. 

Ian does have a great free kick and he can be a fierce tackler from what I remember of his Leeds days. I'd love to ask him how he feels it is going at the moment down on the south coast. Eddie Howe will be aware that he needs to try and keep the fringe players happy or move them out and that will extend to players like Addisson, McDermott, Jalal and Stockley.   

Harte is a seasoned pro that won't like being left out and will want to show that he still has much to offer. From what I have seen he is still lacking in pace and is getting caught out with his positioning, especially when defending against players with pace. I am sure he will work with the central defenders and get a better understanding. When he is on his game he is a really good tackler but I have not seen so much of that side of his game yet.