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When Eddie Howe guided Bournemouth from the pits of League Two to the Premier League for the first time ever in 2015, everyone tipped them for immediate relegation. This is a team who’d spent most their history in the third tier, and with a 11,307-seater stadium, no-one gave them a chance.
Howe kept Bournemouth in the billionaire’s playground of English football for five seasons. They finished ninth, and beat plenty of the so-called ‘Big Six’ in that time. But relegation always felt like an inevitability for a side punching well above its weight, and it eventually came in 2020.
Bournemouth, though, made their return just two years later under Scott Parker, and after a spell with Gary O’Neil, they turned to Andoni Iraola, who has managed to transform them back into Premier League giant slayers.
It hasn’t been easy or straightforward. Bournemouth were humiliated 9-0 by Liverpool under Parker’s management and O’Neil was tasked with avoiding relegation. It goes to show just how talented head coach Iraola is that Bournemouth are now looking at Europe rather than the bottom three.
It’s insulting to see Iraola linked to the Tottenham job in recent weeks, a side who’ve become almost synonymous with failure and disappointment. Iraola only needs to take a look at Dominic Solanke, who joined Spurs from Bournemouth in the summer, to know the grass isn’t always greener.
The Spaniard surely knows he’ll able to land a more attractive role if he sticks around with Cherries a little longer after working miracles on the south coast. Just because it’s a bigger job doesn’t mean it’s a better job.
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