Soon after arriving at New York City FC, Andoni Iraola immediately impressed staff with his attitude. Iraola, by then 33 and in the twilight of his playing career, was brought in specifically for his experience after captaining Athletic Bilbao for four seasons, but he quickly established himself as a team player, known for his humility as much as his leadership.
In his first season in Premier League management, Iraola has now led Bournemouth to their record points tally (48) in the top flight, the Cherries officially surpassing the team Eddie Howe led to ninth place with 46 points in 2017. If results go their way over the next three weeks, they could conceivably finish as high as eighth, ahead of Chelsea and West Ham.
Amidst the psychodrama of one of the most intense relegation battles in recent memory, it is a feat that has largely flown under the radar – Iraola’s March Manager of the Month award aside.
Arteta’s ally
Iraola will never be Howe, a man with whom fans forged an incomparable bond through years of adversity – both the club’s and his own. Howe more than repaid the fans who fundraised to re-sign him from Portsmouth as a player after two serious knee injuries, keeping the club in the Football League on the penultimate day of the 2008-9 season before taking them from League Two to the Premier League in seven seasons.
Iraola, by contrast, has had little time to establish a connection, an unfamiliar name in English football before his appointment. There was an acceptance within Bournemouth’s hierarchy that it was a risk. Yet owner Bill Foley was insistent that “style of play was an important factor” when finding a successor to Gary O’Neil.
Not only had Iraola attended the school of Marcelo Bielsa for two years, coached by the legendary Argentine at Bilbao, he had also played alongside Mikel Arteta at youth club Antiguoko and was represented by the same agency that works with Xabi Alonso. In a similar project at Rayo Vallecano, he secured promotion and then led them to 11th and 12th-placed finishes.
Born in the Basque country, Iraola was never going to spend the bulk of his playing career anywhere but Bilbao, the club that do not sign players from outside the region.
In Spain, he would talk of “grieving” defeats, a heated Copa del Rey in his final match perhaps the most painful of all. The showpiece might have been held at the Bernabeu to ensure a bigger capacity, but those plans were scuppered amid rumoured discomfort at the implications of either Barcelona’s Catalans or Bilbao’s Basques winning the King’s trophy at Real Madrid’s home – a political symbol for the separatists of those regions.
Instead, Iraola’s Bilbao had to play Barcelona at Camp Nou and were beaten fair comprehensively. Iraola, the skipper, was further incensed by a 23-year-old Neymar flicking the ball ostentatiously over Unai Bustinza, an insight into the “gentlemanly” values he has tried to instill in his players as a manager.
Long-term gains
Bournemouth initially struggled to adapt to his demands, but now they are pressing higher, man-marking further up the pitch and forcing mistakes as they transition from a 4-3-3 to a 3-2-5. Much of their progress has come from their work out of possession, though it took time. Nine games into the season, they were the only Premier League side other than Sheffield United not to have won a game and were still in the bottom three in October.
Iraola was undeniably fighting for his job but Foley persevered – at any rate, he was rated highly enough to be afforded a long-termism that was not granted to O’Neil or Scott Parker.
It has required a cultural shift and a change of mindset across the club and it is perhaps no coincidence that as Liverpool begin a project of mammoth proportions post-Jurgen Klopp, they have looked to the Vitality for one of the architects of Bournemouth’s success.
Richard Hughes worked in the Cherries’ recruitment team for a decade, becoming technical director in 2016. There is always a danger when a bottom half club scours the lower leagues for talent, they will have little chance of assembling a squad of Premier League quality. However, Hughes has not only identified signings with a high sell-on value – such as Tyrone Mings from Ipswich Town – he has strengthened with the likes of Lloyd Kelly and Alex Scott, both bought from Bristol City.
The goal was to evolve quickly – inspired by the models of both Brentford and Brighton – but without throwing out the gains already made since consolidating their top flight return in 2022.
Vegas gambles on red and black
It has taken time too for fans to trust that process. The scars still run deep from the two occasions – in 1997 and 2009 – when the club came perilously close to extinction. They would not be in the position they are today without the elusive Russian petrochemical trader Maxim Denim, with a wife who once insisted on giving a half-time team talk in the dressing room.
Some of the scrutiny around Foley’s £150m takeover from Denim in 2022 felt unfair. Bournemouth were looking for a buyer, but the timing was unfortunate after Todd Boehly had recently acquired his stake in Chelsea. Gary Neville publicly questioned the motivations behind Bournemouth’s transition of power, claiming US investors “don’t get” English football.
The acid test will be the new ownership’s ability to tread carefully around the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR). They may have invested well, Justin Kluivert costing just £9.6m, Marcus Tavernier around £10m and Ryan Christie £2.5m, but their total expenditure since the takeover is approaching £175m.
As recently as 2016, the club was fined heavily for a violation of the EFL’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.
Illia Zabarnyi has proven exceptionally good value for £20m, until the 3-0 victory over Brighton playing every minute of the league season. Zabarnyi is one of the best examples of an unconventional but bold recruitment strategy; he had not exactly been a fixture at Dynamo Kyiv but was seen as possessing the right attributes, with one of the highest pass completion rates for centre-backs in the Ukrainian Premier League.
The new Bournemouth
The focus has not been on signings who are guaranteed to hit the ground running, but players Zabarnyi and Kluivert who fit Iraola’s way of playing. The new Bournemouth are subsequently producing 1.49 goals per game, compared to one per game under O’Neil, more shots per game (14.2 compared to 9.4) and 28.6 touches per game in the opposition box (19.6 under O’Neil).
The shrewd recruitment of Antoine Semenyo, Kluivert and Tavernier has ensured they are not solely reliant on Dominic Solanke’s goals, even after he surpassed Josh King’s 2016-17 record return for a Bournemouth player in the Premier League.
Solanke is only an outsider for England’s Euro 2024 squad, even if he has scored 14 league goals more than Ivan Toney (four) and only one fewer than Ollie Watkins (19) – a remarkable transformation for a player who scored six goals in 33 league games last term.
Solanke has won just one international cap in 2017, not helped by his struggles at Chelsea and Liverpool. That could yet prove to Bournemouth’s advantage, having so far kept him out of Newcastle’s clutches.
There is a sense that things can get even better when Tyler Adams is not hampered by injury, and there is likely to be a greater role for Scott next season.
Bournemouth still look vulnerable defensively. Only five clubs have conceded more goals and four of them sit 17th or lower. Then there is the tendency to peter out – only Brentford are dropping more points from winning positions. Iraola’s men have taken the lead 24 times this season and won on just 13 of those occasions, drawing five and losing six.
Still, there has been little jeopardy in the second half of their campaign – they have effectively been safe since early March. It is a feeling not experienced since the days of Howe – and one which has seen Iraola overtake him in the history books.
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