REUTERS – Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc is experienced enough to avoid a “hangover” after his horrendous mistake gifted Watford the equaliser in Saturday’s 1-1 draw in the Premier League, manager Eddie Howe has said.

At the stroke of halftime, Boruc received the ball from Sylvain Distin and then attempted to return the pass, only for Watford’s Odion Ighalo to intercept it and strike the ball into an empty net.

It was not the first time the former Southampton goalkeeper had made a costly mistake.

Two years back when the Saints played Arsenal, Olivier Giroud tackled Boruc, who tried to get past the forward, and the ball ended up in the back of the net a few seconds later.

“Artur is experienced enough to know, and has worked long enough with us to know, that there is no hangover from that mistake and that it’s business as usual,” Howe was quoted as saying by the British media.

“It’s back to work to make ourselves better, no matter whether we win, lose or draw. It was one of those things.

“We encourage our players and our goalkeeper to be brave and to take responsibility to play from the back. That is very much our philosophy.

“There is no blame attached to Artur, he has been excellent since he came here. He has made very few errors but, unfortunately, it is the life of a goalkeeper. You are going to make mistakes,” he added.

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)