BLACKBURN Rovers boss Gary Bowyer has challenged Leon Best to be the best striker in the Championship.

The 27-year-old marked his return to the starting line-up with a goal and an assist in Rovers’ 3-1 win at Bournemouth on Saturday.

But ahead of tonight’s visit of high-flying Watford to Ewood Park (7.45pm), Bowyer has called on the £3m capture from Newcastle United to get even better.

Bowyer said: “He can be as good as he wants to be.

“He’s got the pace, he’s got the power and he’s got the strength.

“It’s all down to Besty and how hard he works. If he does that and he produces goals, the transfer fee we paid for him will look like a snip.”

Best was dropped for the trips to Burnley and Leicester last month after making comments on social networking site Instagram which suggested that he and Bowyer had fallen out.

But the Rovers chief welcomed the striker back into the fold after he apologised and his form and application in training led to a recall for the victory over the Cherries.

Bowyer, who is likely to name an unchanged side against Watford this evening, said: “He’s been first class.

“We said ‘look, you’ve got to show us that you want to work hard’, and he’s done exactly that in training.

“He fully justified his inclusion on Saturday and fully justified that the team selection was right.”

Best set-up strike-partner Jordan Rhodes to open the scoring at Bournemouth and then netted his second goal of the season shortly afterwards.

And the former Newcastle man believes his partnership with Rhodes is already showing signs of huge promise.

He said: “It felt like we had more of an understanding of each other and that we both wanted each other to score and to do well. That’s key to a strike partnership.

“The more I play with Jordan the more I’ll know what he likes to do and then I can do the opposite.

“I know Jordan likes to play on the shoulder. In a lot of teams I’ve played on the shoulder so I’ll come inside where the space will be because the defenders will be marking him.

“I’m very excited to play with him, as well as Josh (King), Tom (Cairney), Corry and Lowey (Jason Lowe). It’s all gelling nicely.”

Tonight’s opponents, Watford, have started the season strongly and moved up to fourth with a 1-0 home win over Wigan on Saturday.

But Best believes Rovers can prove more than a match for the high-flying Hornets in tonight’s game.

He said: “We’ve got good players and when I look at our team I think we’ve got one of the best in the league.

“It is a matter of gelling and if we carry on playing like we did on Saturday I think any team will struggle against us.”