What a difference seven months makes. After watching AFC Bournemouth play out a stupefyingly dull 0-0 draw with Watford at Vicarage Road back in February, you wouldn’t have thought an end-to-end thriller would be on the cards in the next meeting between the two teams.

But that’s exactly what we got this Saturday, with our 2-2 draw sparking into life after Callum Wilson’s opener and never letting up in terms of chances and incidents after that. The second half in particular resembled a basketball game at times, with each side seemingly disinterested in settling for a point before moving into the international break.

It was a game played at a terrific pace, and was a great advert for the Premier League - but despite this I can’t help but feel we let a golden chance to nab all three points slip through our fingers.

Letting the lead slip away twice is bad enough - conceding the second equaliser almost straight after Josh King’s strike was intensely frustrating - but it was the fact we hit the woodwork three times that leaves the worst taste in the mouth.

The first of these efforts that saw Jack Wilshere running into space and hitting the post stung, but it was his second bit of woodwork whacking that really hurt - being free on the left wing and somehow failing to get his shot on target. He had time to control the ball and knock it past Heurelho Gomes who was scrabbling across his line too. It’s easy for me to say that of course, but it was still a shocking miss.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get much more painful Junior Stanislas then takes almost the perfect free-kick on the edge of the area in the 81st minute, chipping the ball slap bang onto the bar.

Watford had their chances too of course, with Isaac Success being a real, er, success for the Hornets after coming on in the 58th minute - causing us endless problems with his direct running and aerial presence. I still felt we had the far more presentable chances of the two sides though, and Watford’s Nordin Amrabat saying his side “deserved to win” must have been a joke. If it was, it wasn’t a very good one.

Despite not bagging that elusive winner the way we pushed so hard at the end for the fifth goal was hugely encouraging though, and we certainly seem to have got back the fire that we showed in our best performances last season.

Take away our mauling at the Etihad last month and our recent showings in the league have been hugely encouraging in fact, with the truly awful display against West Ham United back in August fortunately becoming an ever more distant memory.

If we continue to play like we are we should hopefully be fine this season - and may even spring a few surprises against the bigger sides on the way if we can tighten up a bit more at the back. Despite showing a good defensive shape for much of the first half we did look suspect in the second after all - with Charlie Daniels occasionally struggling against Amrabat, and Success’s headed goal showing that we still lack players that can consistently compete in the air. Andrew Surman barely leaped in challenging the towering Nigerian for instance, and the goal was all too reminiscent of some others we’ve conceded this season - namely against West Ham and Crystal Palace.

We’ve conceded those types of goals almost exclusively in and around London this campaign actually now I think of it. Maybe it’s something in the air (that would count out our defenders then…).

This is a weakness I’m sure Eddie Howe is working hard on trying to remedy though, and we’re at least clearly functioning as an attacking unit now - which comes as a blessed relief, as at the start of the season it looked like we couldn’t compete at either end of the pitch.