The smart and flexible coach is enjoying a remarkable start to the season with Bournemouth and big clubs are taking note
Y
ou have to be patient with new players. You have to give a manager time to work with fresh signings, let them learn his methods. Rome wasn’t built in a day – Brian Clough quipped he wasn’t on that particular job, but it took until the third season at Derby and Nottingham Forest to win promotion. It makes sense; you have to wait. Football takes time. Or you could just turn to Andoni Iraola.
Iraola lost three of his back four in the summer and his goalkeeper. (No detail perhaps so encapsulates the financial landscape of modern European football better than the highest fees paid in the latest transfer window by a Spanish club and a French one were for Bournemouth centre-backs.)
His third-highest non-penalty goalscorer from last season left as well. The expectation might have been of a season, at least a few weeks, of transition, but Bournemouth have, for the first time in the top flight, won three of their first four games. At Liverpool on the opening day they had come from two behind to level before conceding with two minutes remaining so it could easily have been even better. Little wonder Manchester United are said to be keen on him.
