Andoni Iraola has revealed that Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe sent him a good luck message when he took over Bournemouth at the start of the 2023/24 season.
Howe managed Bournemouth extremely successfully over two spells between 2008 and 2020, helping the Cherries survive in League Two before reaching the Premier League.
Iraola, meanwhile, has known about Bournemouth for years. While still Rayo Vallecano boss, he took Eddie Howe out for dinner not long after the latter had left the Vitality Stadium, following their relegation in 2020. The former Cherries chief had spent time shadowing Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid and stayed an extra week in the Spanish capital with Iraola at Vallecas, as part of a peripatetic European tour.
Andoni Iraola reveals messages with Eddie Howe after being appointed Bournemouth manager
“We had a really good experience,” Iraola tells FourFourTwo. “I already knew him from Bournemouth before. They were a good reference for us at Rayo because of the creativity and their set pieces – it’s really nice when you’re training to have the chance to speak to other managers.”
Howe did offer the Spaniard well wishes when appointed Bournemouth manager in the summer of 2023, though stopped short of giving him any advice - they would be rivals that season, after all.
“He texted me and wished me all the best, but we didn’t talk too much,” Iraola reveals. “He was already at Newcastle, and when you’re a coach at another club, you don’t text each other often!”
They may be rivals now, but it’s hard to escape reminders of Howe’s superb achievements at Bournemouth. The Steve Fletcher Stand serves as testament to the modern roots of the club, named after the man who scored the goal that kept the Cherries in the Football League in 2009, early in Howe’s first spell as manager.
“I hear about it every day,” Iraola says. “I work with Steve, Tommy Elphick, Shaun Cooper – they were at Bournemouth as players for years and every time we go to a new stadium or play a friendly, they have stories about parts of the club I didn’t know.
“When I first arrived, I tried to learn as much as I could about the club’s history. Fans remember these things 15, 20 years ago when the club was in trouble, and it’s nice to contribute and be a small part of the story when you’re in the Premier League.”
Things have gone extremely well for Iraola, too, with Bournemouth achieving their best-ever points total last season, with 48. They're on course to break that in 2024/25, though there were initial teething problems last term that he had to overcome.
In implementing tactical changes, Iraola sometimes requested players do unfamiliar things, but making it seem like no big deal.
“The demands of every manager change and the demands of every position in any tactical setup are different,” Iraola explains. “You may be a good winger in a certain system, but for our system it may be different.”
Winger-turned-ball-winner, Ryan Christie is a case in point. “He had the physicality, the tactical understanding, the quality on the ball to be a No.8. With Dango [Ouattara], we thought he could be comfortable at full-back – even Lewis [Cook], he used to play higher but now he’s more comfortable as a defensive midfielder and is playing very well.”
Unsurprisingly, players took time to find their feet. The epiphany would come, however, against former Bournemouth manager, Eddie Howe.
“The game when everything changed was Newcastle at home,” Iraola adds. “We beat them 2-0, played really well and considering the opposition, it was the first game in which we had a complete performance. Everything started going our way after that.”
