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A 42-year-old Spanish head coach from the Basque region making waves and earning admirers in the Premier League isn’t a unique position. After all, the same applies quite specifically to Mikel Arteta. But this year in particular there’s arguably another of the same description outperforming him, if club context is taken into account.
Andoni Iraola has lifted no cups, won no titles, and has never earned a top-half finish in an elite league.
Yet he has more than proven his worth, to the extent that far bigger clubs than he has managed so far – AEK Larnaca, Mirandes, Rayo Vallecano and now AFC Bournemouth – are taking note and, no doubt, wondering if he’s who they should turn to next time they need a new face in the dugout.
After all, despite the lack of silverware and so on, he has helped set records and break down performance barriers with scarcely believable regularity, given the profile of the teams he has been at.
Mirandes had been to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey once in almost a century of existence until he came along, but he took the second division club right back there. Rayo had only been there once in a century too; Iraola’s iteration again made it twice. Then last year with the Cherries, in his first season in England, he garnered their highest points tally in a top-flight season.
Iraola is at an upwardly mobile club, complete with a relatively recent takeover and a flourishing transfer plan, but it’s his impact that is transforming potential into results on the pitch.
Consider: in a 42-game span between 1 November 2023 and 24 December 2024, Bournemouth claimed 64 points under Iraola – just over 1.5 points per game, equating to a 57 or very nearly 58-point haul across a season. That would have placed them just behind Newcastle and Manchester United last term, in ninth.
Should they be competing with clubs of that stature? They did more than merely compete at Old Trafford – they wiped the floor with United and sit eight places above them in the table. Go back through further campaigns and that tally habitually gets them a top-half finish, averaging out at eighth or ninth place.
Could Bournemouth, who have never hit the 50-point mark in a top-flight campaign, and never finished higher than ninth, really expect to do anything more?
In league terms that is so much more than just a glass ceiling for the Cherries, it might as well be heaven – and yet, in this season here and now, they head beyond Christmas and into the new year run of games inside the top six.
Given the five-way fight between up to eight sides for Champions League places, that being the aim or minimum expectation for Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, plus Aston Villa, Tottenham and Newcastle – clubs with elite players and deep pockets – any other club finishing eighth or above in the Premier League can claim nothing short of a magnificent campaign. See Brighton previously, and Nottingham Forest for now.
The only way Bournemouth and similar clubs can reasonably hope to scale such heights, certainly over the long term, is with deep cup runs and days out at Wembley.
Even so, in a one-off campaign, ineptitude and inconsistency at other teams can leave the path open to club-record highs, when everything goes right. Undeniably, Iraola is ticking a lot of the boxes he needs to for that to be the case.
First, his tactical plan is clear, cohesive and consistent. Even if different players are called upon for slightly different roles against new opponents, the overall approach the Cherries take is remarkably solid from game to game and half to half.
Secondly, he has improved members of his squad individually, as well as in the collective. Ryan Christie has been reinvented in midfield, Justin Kluivert has found consistency as an outlet and creative hub, and even goalkeeper Kepa is successfully rebuilding himself in a much lower-key environment after years of setbacks and errors. All are shining examples of Iraola’s coaching capacity and attention to progress.
Not to mention what might be one of the most talented groups of young defenders in the league: Illia Zabarnyi (aged 22), Milos Kerkez (21) and Dean Huijsen (19) could be quite the collection to keep developing if Bournemouth can keep them together, along with their manager.
For such is the constant threat to the Premier League’s middle-tier teams: with opportunity and success comes a spotlight and a transfer fee, the prospect of European football and far greater riches than those with a stadium capacity of under 12,000 can possibly offer.
This year though, Iraola is Bournemouth’s. This year, he offers the real possibility of the ecstasy of another record-breaking season.
