Andoni Iraola has revealed that Newcastle United supervisor Eddie Howe despatched him a very good luck message when he took over Bournemouth initially of the 2023/24 season.
Howe managed Bournemouth extraordinarily efficiently over two spells between 2008 and 2020, serving to the Cherries survive in League Two earlier than reaching the Premier League.
Iraola, in the meantime, has identified about Bournemouth for years. Whereas nonetheless Rayo Vallecano boss, he took Eddie Howe out for dinner not lengthy after the latter had left the Vitality Stadium, following their relegation in 2020. The previous Cherries chief had frolicked shadowing Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid and stayed an additional week within the Spanish capital with Iraola at Vallecas, as a part of a peripatetic European tour.
Andoni Iraola reveals messages with Eddie Howe after being appointed Bournemouth supervisor
“We had a extremely good expertise,” Iraola tells FourFourTwo. “I already knew him from Bournemouth earlier than. They had been a very good reference for us at Rayo due to the creativity and their set items – it’s very nice once you’re coaching to have the possibility to talk to different managers.”
Howe did supply the Spaniard nicely needs when appointed Bournemouth supervisor in the summertime of 2023, although stopped wanting giving him any recommendation – they might be rivals that season, in any case.
“He texted me and wished me all the perfect, however we didn’t speak an excessive amount of,” Iraola reveals. “He was already at Newcastle, and once you’re a coach at one other membership, you don’t textual content one another typically!”
They could be rivals now, nevertheless it’s onerous to flee reminders of Howe’s very good achievements at Bournemouth. The Steve Fletcher Stand serves as testomony to the trendy roots of the membership, named after the person who scored the objective that saved the Cherries within the Soccer League in 2009, early in Howe’s first spell as supervisor.
“I hear about it day-after-day,” Iraola says. “I work with Steve, Tommy Elphick, Shaun Cooper – they had been at Bournemouth as gamers for years and each time we go to a brand new stadium or play a pleasant, they’ve tales about components of the membership I didn’t know.
“After I first arrived, I attempted to study as a lot as I might in regards to the membership’s historical past. Followers bear in mind this stuff 15, 20 years in the past when the membership was in bother, and it’s good to contribute and be a small a part of the story once you’re within the Premier League.”
Issues have gone extraordinarily nicely for Iraola, too, with Bournemouth reaching their best-ever factors complete final season, with 48. They’re on track to interrupt that in 2024/25, although there have been preliminary teething issues final time period that he needed to overcome.
In implementing tactical modifications, Iraola generally requested gamers do unfamiliar issues, however making it seem to be no massive deal.
“The calls for of each supervisor change and the calls for of each place in any tactical setup are completely different,” Iraola explains. “It’s possible you’ll be a very good winger in a sure system, however for our system it might be completely different.”
Winger-turned-ball-winner, Ryan Christie is a working example. “He had the physicality, the tactical understanding, the standard on the ball to be a No.8. With Dango [Ouattara], we thought he might be comfy at full-back – even Lewis [Cook], he used to play increased however now he’s extra comfy as a defensive midfielder and is taking part in very nicely.”
Unsurprisingly, gamers took time to search out their toes. The epiphany would come, nonetheless, in opposition to former Bournemouth supervisor, Eddie Howe.
“The sport when every thing modified was Newcastle at house,” Iraola provides. “We beat them 2-0, performed rather well and contemplating the opposition, it was the primary sport by which we had a whole efficiency. Every part began going our method after that.”
