In the week following the final game of the Premier League season, Harry Arter emerged from a debrief with Eddie Howe not only with a strong endorsement from the Bournemouth manager, but with reassuring news for Republic of Ireland supporters who are accustomed to a spate of withdrawals for internationals at this time of the year and would have noticed that Arter missed the last game with an ankle problem.
“The manager just felt it was best to take a rest, especially with the internationals coming up,” Arter says. “I will be fully fit for them, which I am really looking forward to.”
A simple statement, but eyebrow-raising nonetheless. Those staying with the interminable will-he-won’t-he saga that seems to have accompanied every step of James McCarthy’s international career might be startled at the idea of a Premier League manager going out of his way to accommodate the Republic of Ireland’s interests. And a clean bill of health for Arter makes a welcome change from his usual condition at the end of the season, when he has limped into international action only to promptly limp out again.
Two seasons ago he made his international debut in the anti-climactic goalless draw against England, nursing a groin strain which flared up to the extent that he pulled out of a far more important game against Scotland six days later. Around this time last year, he played with a calf injury in a friendly against Holland and was so out of sorts that it was a straightforward decision for Martin O’Neill to leave him out of the squad for the European Championships. Perhaps the decision wasn’t made entirely for footballing reasons. Last summer there was a bigger picture for Arter, with grief still fresh from him and his partner Rachel having lost their daughter still-born six months previously. Since then, the couple have had another child and last week Arter was in a typically positive frame of mind.
“I have always tried to stay as professional as I possibly can,” says Arter, who left non-League Woking to join Bournemouth in 2010 when they were in League One. “Football is my job and I am lucky to be in the position I am. Going back six or seven years ago the thought of playing Premier League and international football was a million miles away so it didn’t take too much thought to go away. I will be looking forward after that to some quality family time with my partner and the baby, but before that I am really excited to be involved in these internationals.”
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Martin O’Neill will be doing some careful assessments of his own this weekend, and you would expect Arter to be involved in some capacity today against Uruguay. Asked to reveal what mark out of 10 Howe might have given him for the season or indeed what he might have awarded himself, Arter politely declines to indulge the idea. However, he will acknowledge playing a key role in Bournemouth’s highest-ever league finish and enjoying the challenge of Jack Wilshere arriving at the club on a season-long loan from Arsenal.
“Players go one way or the other when somebody of that quality comes in,” says Arter. “They either accept that they might not play or they work harder to become a better player themselves. The one thing I wasn’t going to do was give up my spot and in the end I ended up playing alongside Jack.”
It helped that Arter managed to stay fit for most of the season and avoided too many suspensions, despite picking up 12 yellow cards and one red. Only Jose Holebas of Watford has picked up more cards in the Premier League this season — 14 yellows.
Howe admits that his midfielder “plays on the edge” and Arter acknowledged himself that he was lucky not to get a second red for an awful tackle on Joe Allen of Stoke City in his penultimate league game of the season. This will concern O’Neill, though Arter says it is a situation that is under control.
“The [Allen] tackle did not look great on viewing and that is something that the manager here would never encourage, but that actual high-energy pressing and tackling part of my game is one of the reasons why he picks me week in week out. That is something which he would definitely not want me to take out,” Arter says. “I don’t want to ever change my game and if Martin O’Neill does pick me for any game, it’s for what he sees at club level. I wouldn’t change or have a different mindset playing for Ireland or Bournemouth. I would like to feel that the manager [O’Neill] wouldn’t want me to have a different mind-set.”
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Arter coped well with the pressure of being thrown in for his first competitive game in Vienna back in November when McCarthy was again absent. “It was a very special moment for myself, but also for the country. I think it was a real indication that we can achieve something in this World Cup qualifying group,” Arter said of the 1-0 victory courtesy of a James McClean goal. “We are in a position where I feel we can qualify and I want to be part of it. Even in the build-up to the Euros I didn’t feel I contributed at all.”
Still we have yet to see the best he has to offer. Just when Arter thought the Austria game had given his international career momentum, an injury forced him out of the Wales game in March. At least this week he should get a good run at it and he surely has plenty to learn from Roy Keane, another who played on the edge, and well over it on occasion. Now Keane mentors James McClean on controlling his aggression and it might also help if he took Arter under his wing.
“I would always be happy to work with Roy on a one-to-one basis,” Arter says. “He is somebody who I looked up to as a young lad. The majority of midfield players of my age probably all looked up to him, not just Irish lads. He had that quality on the ball which I don’t think Man U have ever replaced and his passion for football has not been replaced by anybody I know as a footballer nowadays.”
For Arter, the substance is there and some fine tuning is all that is required.
ON TV TODAY
Rep of Ireland v Uruguay
eirSport1, 6pm