Who is new Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola? 🍒 | OneFootball

Eyebrows were raised on Monday when AFC Bournemouth announced the shock decision to part company with manager Gary O’Neil.

O’Neil took charge of the Cherries on an initial interim basis following Scott Parker’s sacking last August, and he inherited quite the task. The newly promoted side had lost three of their first four matches of the season, with Parker’s last match in charge being a 9-0 thrashing away at Liverpool.

But O’Neil won 10 of his 34 Premier League matches in charge of the club, guiding them to survival with relative ease and earning himself the job on a permanent basis in November. The work he did was so impressive that he was touted by many as an outside candidate for Manager of the Year in 2022/23.

If we needed a reminder that there is no room for sentiment in football, Monday’s announcement was it. The Bournemouth board – led by their owner, the American sports tycoon Bill Foley – clearly believe that a change of direction is required if they are going to establish themselves as a Premier League club.

As Foley said in the statement announcing O’Neil’s departure: “We have put plans in place for long-term success with improvements being made to infrastructure, most notably the development of a new state-of-the-art training facility and the ongoing discussions around upgrades to our stadium.

“We have also identified a number of significant targets in the transfer market this summer and believe this change in direction will provide us with the best platform from which to build.”

The timing of the announcement suggested a replacement was already lined up, and two hours later Bournemouth revealed that recently departed Rayo Vallecano coach Andoni Iraola is the man they have chosen to lead the club into a new era.

His name might not be too familiar to English football fans, but his story so far suggests Bournemouth may well have unearthed a gem in Spain.

Hailing from the Basque country, Iraola was a right-back who came through the youth system at Athletic Bilbao and played over 500 senior games for the club, during which time he was coached by the likes of Marcelo Bielsa and Ernesto Valverde.

In 2015 he joined New York City FC for what proved to be the last stop of his playing career. Patrick Vieira was his coach at the time, and the former Arsenal and France midfielder is said to have acted as a mentor to Iraola, with the pair holding many conversations about Iraola’s coaching ambitions.

“Patrick gave me a new perspective on the game, because he came from the Manchester City school, where he had trained as a coach,” Iraola later told The Coaches Voice.

“A positional game, in a 4-3-3, with the intention of looking for the free man and keeping everyone in their position.”

After hanging up his boots at the end of 2017, Iraola got his first break in management when he was appointed by AEK Larnaca FC in 2018.

His time in Cyprus started well but ended badly, and he was sacked the following January after his side went almost two months without a win.

He wasn’t out of work for long, however, and he fared much better in his next job when he took over at CD Mirandés in the Spanish second division.

Iraola was unable to guide Mirandés to the top flight, but his tactical ideas were beginning to develop, and in 2020 he famously oversaw a remarkable run to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey for just the second time in the club’s 92-year history. Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal were all the victims of cup upsets before valiant Mirandés were ultimately eliminated by eventual winners Real Sociedad.

Iraola’s contract expired that summer and he was snapped up by another Segunda División club, Rayo Vallecano. He achieved promotion in his first season in Vallecas before leading another second-tier outfit to the last four of Copa del Rey in his second campaign.

Earlier this year his success caught the attention of Leeds United when they were seeking a replacement for Jesse Marsch, but Rayo denied Iraola permission to speak to the Premier League club and he stayed put, guiding his side to an 11th-placed finish in LaLiga before saying adiós when his contract expired last month.

His track record suggests Bournemouth have hired a coach capable of getting smaller, unfancied teams punching above their weight, and tactically he promises to bring dynamic, energetic pressing football to the Vitality Stadium.

Iraola’s Rayo Vallecano side played on the smallest pitch in LaLiga and defensively he usually deployed a compact 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 formation during his three years at the club. They tended to press proactively, with the two wingers tucking inside to force opposition attacks down the centre of the pitch.

Fran García – who is returning to Real Madrid this summer having began his career with Los Blancos – was Iraola’s go-to left-back during his time at Rayo and a crucial player when it came to pressing aggressively. After winning the ball back, creative players like Óscar Trejo and Isi Palazón were then tasked with leading the counter-attacks, and going forward Rayo would typically set up in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1.

Width was a big factor of Rayo’s game under Iraola, while maintaining possession for long periods was also something they would try to do, with the central defenders expected to be calm and progressive on the ball. Last season under O’Neil, Bournemouth averaged roughly 40% possession in games, something Iraola will be hoping to improve.

It will be interesting to see who those “significant transfer targets” Foley mentioned in his statement turn out to be, and whether Iraola tries to bring any of his Rayo Vallecano players over to England with him.

Either way, he will be forced to adapt his football to the demands of a new league and culture, but Bournemouth fans can expect high-pressing to be on the menu next season, and it will be fascinating to find out whether the club’s surprise gamble to sack O’Neil pays off.