Bournemouth face Crystal Palace this weekend before their successful head coaches move on with top level still unclear
O
n Sunday afternoon, Bournemouth face Crystal Palace: Andoni Iraola, in his fourth-last league game in charge of the home side, against Oliver Glasner in his fifth-last league game in charge of the away side – although the latter also has the Europa Conference League to deal with. Both managers are out of contract at the end of the season, and both hope to move on to a club with a substantially bigger budget.
That’s understandable. This has been an uncomfortable season for Glasner, whose frustration at the club’s financial limitations was perhaps expressed a little too publicly, but history will remember him as the manager who won Crystal Palace the FA Cup. More prosaically, with the 12th-highest wage bill in the Premier League, he has taken Palace to 10th and 12th, while they started the weekend 13th. And there remains the possibility of a glorious farewell with Conference League success in Leipzig.
Iraola may not have won a trophy, but his achievements in overperforming the wage bill are even more striking. Bournemouth over the past three seasons have had the 15th, 18th and 17th-highest wages bills in the division but have finished 12th and ninth. They went into this weekend seventh with a realistic chance of Champions League qualification should Aston Villa triumph in the Europa League and finish fifth, giving the Premier League six qualifying slots.
