FOUR and a half years ago, in glorious sunshine at John Smith’s Stadium, Callum Wilson served notice of his considerable potential.

Signed a month earlier from Coventry City for a fee of around £3million, the Cherries striker terrorised a limp Terriers defence, scoring twice during a 4-0 opening-day win in the Championship. A missed penalty barely mattered.

Wilson went on to rack up 23 goals in 50 appearances that season and could well have maintained his impressive strike rate had injury not ravaged his first two seasons in the Premier League.

But with 12 goals in 25 games for Cherries in 2018-19, Wilson is having the campaign he has been threatening for years.

The England international, free from the shackles of injury once more having shaken off a seven-week knee problem, was at his electric best against a Huddersfield team which crumpled spectacularly under the weight of Cherries’ array of attacking talent.

Wilson’s instinctive, chested finish from Ryan Fraser’s cross was just the cusp. His astute second-half pull-back which found the unmarked Fraser, who converted, was even better and a fine example of the awareness and technique from which Cherries benefit with the 27-year-old in the side.

The headlines were there to be written. And the frontman wrote them.

But while a Wilson-led narrative is convenient, he was very much a part of a whole, here.

Key performances came all over the park, not least from the tirelessly creative Fraser and defender Chris Mepham, whose growing confidence was illustrated by his domination of Huddersfield’s attacking players.

There were plenty more. Perhaps Wilson’s return gave his team-mates the psychological lift which had been required to arrest a losing away run in the league stretching back to October.

Actually, there is no perhaps about it. It was clear to see. Wilson brings the best out of others simply by being on the pitch.

And when he scores goals and supplies assists as well, Cherries look a team capable of recording their best finishing position yet in the English football ladder.

Whether that chapter can be written, only time will tell.