Andoni Iraola and the team he manages, Bournemouth FC, have enjoyed an incredible season. While other teams of their stature are dealing with poor results and relegation fears, The Cherries are inching toward European qualification for next season. Is it all down to Iraola’s tactics?
Today, I am looking at the methods employed by the Spanish manager and trying to answer early whether this kind of form is sustainable.
Iraola’s Career Prior to Managing Bournemouth
As has seemingly become the fashion in recent years, Andoni Iraola is one of the young managers employed in the Premier League. In fact, Iraola only recently retired from playing professional football in 2016.
Born in the Basque region, Iraola played as a right-back for local clubs, most notably Athletic Bilbao from 2003 until 2015. He retired after one final season at New York City FC in the MLS.
During this time, Bilbao was Copa del Rey runner-up on three separate occasions, and Iraola earned seven call-ups to the Spanish national team.
His managerial career began in 2018, taking charge of Cyprus’ AEK Larnaca. Next, a short stint in the Spanish lower divisions made Rayo Vallecano take a chance on hiring Iraola. The club was promoted to La Liga, and the manager spent three relatively successful years in leading the team.
Iraola had had his sights on taking over the Premier League for some time. He didn’t hesitate to sign up for AFC Bournemouth in 2023, in spite of the club looking at the start of the season as one of the teams likeliest to be relegated to the Championship.
Tactical Philosophy
Andoni Iraola arrived in the Premier League, the toughest football competition in the world, because he’d become an expert at helping a smaller teams overachieve. Bournemouth’s results in the 2024/2025 campaign proved that he hasn’t lost that touch.
How exactly does he achieve this? Iraola’s tactical philosophy involves a few predictable choices and plenty of intricate fine-tuning in terms of the team’s strategies.
Bournemouth, or Rayo Vallecano before, are ready to work harder than their opponents. Well-drilled trigger presses allow the team to win the ball back and launch counter-attacks, usually through fast wide players.
Also, more attacking players will make themselves available to defend or double a role. And the team makes the very best of set pieces and rarely loses a game once it has the lead.
Formations and Adaptability
In terms of the formation used, Iraola nearly always begins from a conservative 4-2-3-1 approach. This can easily shift to a 4-3-3 when attacking.
It’s no coincidence that the 4-2-3-1 is the most often used formation in modern football. Utilizing it means that Bournemouth can match most opponents man for man.
The formation allows the team to attack with width, making the best of the wing-backs and wingers exploiting the wider areas. But it also allows the team to make themselves narrower when defending with one of the defensive midfielders dropping deep to assist the central defenders. When needed, the team won’t hesitate to try and play long balls forward or to attempt through passes.
However, it needs to be noted that Iraola’s tactics are not one-dimensional. This is likely the reason why most opponent teams haven’t yet been able to fully figure out the Cherries’ style and exploit it against them.
Bournemouth in Defense
AFC Bournemouth are a team that has yo-yoed in recent years from the EPL to the Championship. The team’s tactics have always been sensible, albeit unexciting. Eddie Howe‘s 4-4-2 defensive style was one of the tactics more often discussed in 2020.
Part of Iraola’s unexpected success is due to the 2024/25 iteration of Bournemouth to press aggressively and outrun their opponents. But that’s, perhaps, an oversimplification. Most of the smaller EPL teams attempted something similar and came up short.
Yes, there’s a degree of risk. Like Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds, Bournemouth commits to man-to-man pressing. When this works, it leads to goalscoring chances for the Cherries. When it doesn’t, it leads to counterattacks from the opposition.
But Iraola has shown to be adaptable. The team will shift to a low-press, sitting in a 4-4-2 against opposition that can manoeuvre in tight spaces. In this setup, the team’s three lines are meant to stay compact and organized, moving together to squeeze out the centre of the pitch.
Since Bournemouth likes to crowd the central areas and force the opposition into playing risky, wide passes, it’s central defenders Illia Zabarnyi or Marcos Senesi who will win back the ball and launch a counterattack. Senesi, for example, averages three successful tackles per 90 minutes.
However, one of the things that the Spanish manager did was to bring in younger players into the starting line-up. This gives the team to press forward for longer. The Cherries had the lowest age average of any Premier League team just recently.
Finally, this youth and willingness to outwork the opposition is best shown in the way that attacking players press. Attacking midfielders Antoine Semenyo, Justin Kluivert, and Marcus Tavernier, as well as starting forward Evanilson, are all 25 years old and reaching the peak of their powers.
Bournemouth’s attackers aggressively press the central defenders and full-backs when the opposition tries to build from the back. Tavernier is particularly effective. These tackles in the attacking third often lead to Bournemouth’s goal-scoring chances.
Bournemouth in Attack
Iraola has designed a complex system of build-up patterns for Bournemouth. To say that they are merely a team which presses aggressively and hits on the counterattack would be to do the manager a disservice. However, it all starts with summoning excellent levels of energy for each performance.
Iraola told Sky Sports that the team’s identity is melded with having a great work rate. “Most of the games that we win are the games that are more open, where there are more chances, where we can exploit one-against-ones on the outside and find bigger spaces, because attacking small spaces is probably not our strength.”
When building up from the back. the Cherries’ structure will resemble a 4-1-2-3. One of the defensive midfielders tends to drop down to pick up the pass if needed. However, players are instructed to play fast passes forward whenever they have the opportunity.
When this has worked and the ball has been advanced upfield, the other central midfielder will typically advance to assist the central attacking midfielder and the striker. This means that Ryan Christie is available for Kluivert or Evanilson to play a cutback toward him.
The way that Kluivert and Christie (or Lewis Cook or Tyler Adams) advance behind the attacker in an almost free-roaming role gives the defenders plenty to work with. They’ll need to make quick decisions about who to mark and whether to maintain their defensive shape.
A lot is demanded of the full-backs as well. Milos Kerkez has been particularly effective this season. In the quick build-up, the full-back may push up to help out the winger or may become a decoy player making an inverted run. This leads to goals through cutbacks and a system also employed brilliantly by Xavi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen.
Finally, when all of this fails, Bournemouth takes things the old-fashioned way and looks to pass in between or over the lines to Evanilson. The Brazilian has the strength and skill on the ball to see through these attacks.
What’s Next for Iraola and AFC Bournemouth?
Andoni Iraola is on track to offer AFC Bournemouth its best Premier League finish of the club’s history. That would be an incredible achievement for a team that many predicted would struggle to avoid relegation.
Naturally, this achievement would help the Cherries financially. The team could even aim for European football participation. And, not least of all, Iraola’s profile will get a massive boost.
Still, at the time of writing, there’s nearly half of the season left to play. While Bournemouth’s players have put in exciting performances, it remains to be seen if they have the stamina and inventiveness to keep this going.
Iraola’s tactics, however, could make him a managerial star for the upcoming years. His name will likely come up the next time a big-name Premier League or La Liga side are looking for a new manager.
