Arter's screamer of a goal shows his development

Having seen Harry Arter put in the kind of performance he did against Leeds Utd I would not have been surprised to have seen him dropped for the Watford game. Eddie Howe clearly knew far better than me and was happy to include the central midfield player in a three-man midfield that sought to keep possession for AFCB against a very talented Watford side. The strike that saw AFCB go one-nil up though was absolutely top-draw and even the Sky presenters were drawling over the blockbuster of shot that everybody knew was destined for the back of the net as soon as Harry hit it with hi left peg.

Harry scores a belter of a goal at Watford.

It would be nice to know exactly what Harry was thinking before he decided to have a go from such a distance. We have seen him balloon shots over the bar in warm up so often at Dean Court that I wondered just how accurate he could be if he did let a shot go from where he was on the pitch. But Harry's technique did not fail him and he cut across the ball very cleanly and the ball flight flew away from Gomes in goal fairly swiftly, and it was great to see the back of the net ripple and to see Harry whirl away to the supporters in celebration of his first goal of the season.  What a goal - and in front of the cameras!

Will we see more shots from distance now?

The midfield player may have wanted to keep up with Andrew Surman who has already registered this season and a bit of competition between the players is healthy. I am sure Steve Cook is busy reminding team mates that he is sitting fairly high up in the goal scoring chart this season for the club. Indeed, we need Harry Arter and others to start adding to the goal count and hitting form. Now and again you have to just have a go at a shot, even if the odds are against the shot finding the back of the net. A deflection can always fall for another player or win a corner, and I hope that more AFCB players take a leaf out of Arter's book and have a shot when it is on from distance.