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Andoni Iraola will be up for grabs in the summer after confirming he is to leave Bournemouth at the end of the season. He will surely be in demand, but where will he go next?
With the news that Andoni Iraola will be moving on from Bournemouth after his contract expires, more than a few sets of ears will have pricked up across the Premier League.
The Spaniard has done a fantastic job on the south coast, breaking Bournemouth’s top-flight points record in both of his two full seasons at the club after joining in the summer of 2023, and there is an outside chance he’ll do it again this term.
He has built a team capable of beating the best while playing an exciting, forward-thinking, high-pressing, and progressive style of football that is both easy on the eye and effective.
What’s more, he’s done it while Bournemouth have consistently sold their best players. Last summer alone, they lost four of their first-choice back five, with Dean Huijsen, Milos Kerkez, and Illia Zabarnyi all departing, while Kepa Arrizabalaga went back to parent club Chelsea before being sold to Arsenal. The year before, top scorer Dominic Solanke was sold, and just three months ago, this season’s joint-top scorer, Antoine Semenyo, left for Manchester City.
Remarkably, Bournemouth don’t look any weaker for it. Following Saturday’s fully-deserved 2-1 win at Arsenal – only the league leaders’ second home defeat of the season – Iraola’s side have now gone 12 Premier League games unbeaten. It’s the longest unbeaten streak by any side at any point in the top flight this season.
Bournemouth’s style of play under Iraola is perfectly suited to the Premier League. It is based around high pressing and fast and direct play when they get the ball. Iraola’s football is, according to six-time Premier League winner, Pep Guardiola, precisely the direction that football is going in.
“Today, modern football is the way that Bournemouth play, that Newcastle play, Brighton play, Liverpool have always been like that,” the Manchester City manager said last year.
Indeed, 2024-25 is the only season on record in the Premier League (since 2006-07) that has seen more shots from fast breaks (1.79 per game) than this season (1.73). That number increased slowly from 0.78 per game in 2020-21 to more than twice as many in each of the two most recent seasons.
Since Iraola came to England, only Liverpool (148) and Chelsea (121), teams that see much more of the ball and have much greater resources, have had more shots from fast breaks in Premier League games than Bournemouth (119), who also rank fifth for goals from fast breaks, with 18.
Over that time, they have attacked the fastest of every team, with the average speed of their moves upfield clocking in at 1.96 metres per second. Only four teams have averaged fewer passes per sequence than them. Central to Iraola’s philosophy is playing forwards as swiftly as possible.
“The first thing we try to do when we recover the ball is play to the number nine,” he told Sky Sports in an interview in 2024. “Because that is usually the moment when the opponent is less well-positioned and you can find better spaces.”
He wants his players to try and win the ball high up the pitch, too, before combining a regain with attacking quickly towards goal. Over the course of his Bournemouth reign, his side ranks fifth for high turnovers (winning the ball within 40m of the opposition’s goal), third for shot-ending high turnovers and fourth for goal-ending high turnovers.
Only three teams have a lower PPDA (passes allowed per defensive action) rate than his Bournemouth side (10.5), showing they have been one of the league’s most proactive sides when out of possession. This season, only Liverpool (eight) have scored more goals from high turnovers than them (six).
Iraola has been extremely successful, too. After a difficult start, when he failed to win any of his first nine games in charge and was widely assumed to have been drifting towards the sack, he turned things around dramatically. Since the end of that winless run, only Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Newcastle have picked up more points in the Premier League than Bournemouth (146, or 1.47 per game).
They have arguably been unfortunate not to have secured a first ever foray into European football. Last season, for example, Bournemouth finished ninth, but they were sixth in Opta’s expected points table. The underlying data suggested they deserved Villa’s spot in the Europa League. It would make sense if he was in for a move to a bigger club.
So, Where Next?
Reports suggest that Iraola has not yet decided his next move. It is unclear whether he will want to jump straight into another job this summer, but there’s no question that there’ll be serious interest.
Some will come from elsewhere in Europe, with Bayer Leverkusen and boyhood team Athletic Club both apparent possibilities, but with so much managerial uncertainty in the Premier League and his football so perfect for the league, there are a whole host of clubs in England who could make a move for him.
Having worked his way up from a first job at AEK Larnaca in Cyprus, to Mirandés in the Spanish second tier, and then on to Rayo Vallecano in La Liga before going to Bournemouth, Iraola is on an upwards trajectory. He will, presumably, have his eyes on a job at a bigger club than Bournemouth next, where he won’t have to contend with quite so much in the way of player sales.
However, there is also the chance that clubs will be reluctant to take a gamble on a manager who has never finished higher than ninth in any league. Thomas Frank’s failure at Tottenham may put other clubs off taking a chance on another mid-table manager, however successful.
But the Spaniard’s body of work at Bournemouth is surely impressive enough for someone to give him a go. Here are five Premier League clubs who could do just that.
Liverpool
Following the 4-0 aggregate defeat to PSG in the Champions League quarter-final, Liverpool’s only hope of rescuing this campaign lies in qualifying for the competition next season. Head coach Arne Slot’s future is in doubt as a result, even though he won the Premier League only last year.
Many are assuming that former Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso would be the favourite to take over given he is also out of work, but the club’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, was the man who took Iraola to Bournemouth, so there is at least one person in an important position at Anfield who likes him very much indeed.
Liverpool fans would enjoy his fast-paced football, and the team is already set up to play that way; only Brentford (46) have had more shots from fast breaks in the Premier League this season than them (44), while Liverpool top the division this season for goal-ending high turnovers (8), just ahead of Bournemouth in second (6).
Alonso would arguably be the only obstacle, though a pretty big one, to Iraola having a shot at the job at Anfield.
Chelsea
Liam Rosenior has only been at Chelsea for a matter of months, but there is already speculation about his future. And they are exactly the kind of club to make a managerial change because an opportunity they like the look of comes up.
They have a young, vibrant squad full of attacking talent, with plenty of players who would suit Iraola’s style. They have the third-lowest PPDA in the Premier League this season (10.7, just ahead of Bournemouth’s 11.0), while only Manchester City (54) have recorded more shot-ending high turnovers than them (53).
However, there is a chance that the club’s experience in taking Graham Potter from Brighton may put Chelsea off going for another manager from a mid-table Premier League team.
Manchester United
Michael Carrick is currently the frontrunner for the permanent manager’s position at Manchester United after a positive start to his tenure, but after Monday’s home defeat to Leeds, there is every chance the momentum could swing between now and the end of the season.
Iraola may be a good option for a club who have always liked direct attacking play and don’t have much patience for slow possession. Ultimately, that was Ruben Amorim’s downfall as manager.
Carrick has sought to change that. Since he took over, only Liverpool (29) and Bournemouth (26) have recorded more direct attacks – open-play sequences that start inside the team’s own half and move at least 50% towards the opposition’s goal, ending in a shot or a touch in the opposition box – than United (25). Clearly, they have the players to play that way.
It is impossible to know how Iraola would deal with the scrutiny that comes with managing at Old Trafford, having never managed a club even close to the size of United, and there is an argument that they need someone with more top-level experience. He could be an interesting option, though, if they want to take a risk.
Crystal Palace
Reports on Wednesday suggested that Crystal Palace were considering a move for Iraola, so if he wants a job similar to the one he had at Bournemouth, though with the added benefit of being able to offer players a move to London, it could be an interesting option.
Palace have a squad built for attacking at pace and have proved hugely effective at doing so under Oliver Glasner: they have a higher average speed of attack than any other team in the Premier League this season (2.04 m/s).
There will be a vacancy at Selhurst Park as Glasner has already confirmed his departure at the end of the campaign, but would this job be big enough for Iraola? Would it even be a step up from Bournemouth? That’s not clear, and may mean he avoids it.
Newcastle
There aren’t many examples of managers moving from mid-table clubs to teams in the Champions League, but Newcastle boast arguably the most successful of the bunch.
Eddie Howe’s time at Newcastle hasn’t been entirely positive, but it might have been good enough to encourage the club’s owners to try and do it again. They hired Howe on the back of some impressive work at Bournemouth, and they could try and repeat the trick with Iraola.
Transitions are a huge part of Newcastle’s game and so is getting forward at pace. They have attacked at the exact same average speed this season as Bournemouth (1.88 m/s), with the two teams in joint-third position in this regard.
With a great deal of speculation about Howe’s future, this option might make the most sense of the lot.
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