Iraola: Bournemouth must evolve to progress

Eyebrows were raised when Bournemouth parted ways with Gary O’Neil last summer.

Hastily appointed after Scott Parker’s sudden and unexpected departure, he had eventually steered the Cherries away from relegation trouble during their first season back in the Premier League.

Chairman Bill Foley wanted to freshen things up; to take the club in a new direction as he put his stamp on the Dorset club, and so replaced him with Andoni Iraola the very same day. “With his contract in Spain coming to an end this summer we wanted to act quickly,” said the American businessman.

The former Spain international – who played in the same team as Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and Bayer Leverkusen’s Xabi Alonso as a youngster – had led Rayo Vallecano out of LaLiga 2, then to two successive 12th-placed finishes in the top flight, and was in demand.

Foley backed his man in the transfer market and bankrolled new signings to the tune of more than £110 million. But two months in, the project appeared to be stalling rapidly; it took 10 games for the first win and by November 4, Bournemouth were third bottom after a 6-1 trouncing at Man City.

In hindsight, you could probably put the poor start down to teething problems. Under pressure from the outside, but evidently not within, the club’s patience in Iraola was rewarded – on April 28, following a 3-0 win over Brighton, the Cherries reached 48 points – their best Premier League return.

“Everyone says about the bad start and it’s true that it was a really bad start,” says Iraola, calm and composed – as ever – as he sits down in the home dressing room at the Vitality Stadium for an exclusive chat with Sky Sports.

He can smile about it now. “Looking back, it probably was the best thing to happen to us, but in that moment, it was really hard!

“I remember playing against the top teams at the beginning, in very difficult games. We were still not there, but later we could play games where we had more chances, with a more evolved team that was more ready.

“It was not the worst thing, looking now with some perspective, and is something that will serve us, especially for next season. The record points (tally) was a really good reward for the season the players gave us.”

Instead of returning to his native Spain during the off-season, Iraola stayed in the UK as he prepared for his second season in charge. As a cycling fanatic, when time allowed, he was glued to the Tour de France and the Olympics.

Pre-season took the Cherries to the USA, where they faced Wrexham and Arsenal and, when Iraola was back on the training pitch, there were double sessions aplenty.

He knows preparation will be key after last year: “We have to arrive straightaway at the beginning of the season.” There is a hint of warning in his voice.

Foley’s lofty ambitions for the club have the fans excited. Talk of reaching Europe within five years of his takeover last December is music to the ears of supporters whose club came close to extinction less than two decades ago.

Given those aims and last season’s trajectory, expectations are, naturally, bound to be higher this term.

Matching outside expectations, though, is not high on Iraola’s list of priorities.

“We cannot control expectations and I’ve said a lot of times that I don’t trust the long-term goals too much,” he says.

“Once we play against Forest on the first day, if we lose, (people will say) we’re going to get relegated and if we win, (people will say) we’re going to be in the top 10! After 38 games, the table puts you, more or less, in your place.

“You have to control what you can control. We have to focus in every game. I know we have the first three games, then there is an international break – I don’t look much further.

“We are playing in a competition where we know we are not going to have an easy game; even the ones we win are going to be really tough games and we will have to keep working until the end.

“We also have to know the same way when we are playing Liverpool or Man City away we will have our chances. It will be much more difficult, but we cannot say there are 12 games in the season we cannot get anything from. We have to try in every game.”

Iraola has the advantage of having overseen minimal squad turnover this summer. Enes Unal’s loan move from Getafe has become permanent, Dean Huijsen has joined from Juventus to replace Lloyd Kelly and promising striker Daniel Jebbison has signed from Sheffield United for a reported compensation fee of £1.5m.

Star striker Dominic Solanke’s £65m move to Tottenham last week was headline news, but it did not come completely out of the blue and the Cherries have over a fortnight to reinvest that fee in a replacement, should they so wish.

“We are basically the same and we have the experience of a whole season with the ups, the lows and games where we learned a lot. Now we can get into more detail in different areas; we know each other, I know where the players perform better.

“A lot of our team is quite young and especially for the young players Milos [Kerkez], Ilia Zabarnyi, Alex Scott, Dango [Outtara], one season in the Premier League can make them improve a lot and I expect they can raise their level.”

One of the favourites for relegation last term, at the time of writing, Bournemouth are nowhere near that conversation. Sky Bet currently have the Cherries priced as high as 6/1 to return to the Championship.

Still, Iraola will not take any notice of such ideas – even after a positive pre-season.

“We’ve done a good job, but you really never know until the competition starts,” he concludes. “We have a good base from the past season and we have a good platform to continue building.

“For me, our second season is very important. We have organisation and structure as a team, but we have to improve. Other teams are signing really well and I’m sure they will be very good, better than past seasons.

“If we don’t improve, we will probably finish in a worse position, so collectively and individually we have to evolve the way we did things last season. Sometimes it’s not going to be enough, so you have to find new ways to achieve the same things.”

The rollercoaster of last season has no doubt been the catalyst for Iraola’s increased pragmatism. Inside, though, he is sure to be wanting more.