By Opta Analyst | Created at 2025-01-13 11:26:07 | Updated at 2025-01-13 18:10:18
6 hours ago
Bournemouth have become a force to be reckoned with under Andoni Iraola thanks to his high intensity out-of-possession philosophy. Will it be enough to take the Cherries into Europe?
Bournemouth isn’t a place you’d usually associate with high intensity. Known more for its higher population of elderly people, the south coast town is often a place where people head to wind down and enjoy a slower pace of life.
Since arriving at the club in the summer of 2023, Andoni Iraola has changed a lot of perceptions about Bournemouth… well, at least the football club that represents the town. Now, over halfway through his second season at the Cherries, the Spaniard could soon be taking them on a European tour.
Following their 1-0 win over Everton last time out in the league, Bournemouth have set a new club record unbeaten run in the Premier League of eight games (W5 D3).
With 33 points from their 20 games so far, this is the best start they’ve made across any of their eight seasons in the Premier League. It’s seven points more than their previous highest (26 in 2018-19) and six more than they managed in the only campaign in which they secured a top-half finish in the competition (25 points in 2016-17, when they ended ninth).
History suggests another top-half finish is in sight, too. None of the last 17 teams to have won exactly 33 points from 20 games have finished outside the top 10, while 10 of those have ended up in the top six. If Bournemouth replicate that this season, they’d secure European football for the first time in their history.
The underlying data suggests this is no fluke, either. Bournemouth have been consistently strong this season and, if anything, are probably below where they should be. Based on the Opta expected points model, the Cherries have been the third-best team in the Premier League in 2024-25.
This model simulates the number of goals scored by each side in every match based on the expected goals (xG) value of all shots taken. It then uses the simulated number of goals to determine the match outcome (win/draw/loss). Every match is then simulated 10,000 times, allowing the expected points for each team to be calculated based on the proportion of simulations they win/draw/lose.
This isn’t an exact science, of course, as expected goals data doesn’t account for several factors, such as game state and dangerous periods of possession that don’t lead to shots. But it’s still a decent barometer of how teams have performed through the first 20 matchdays.
Bournemouth’s expected points total is 37.3 – only lower than Arsenal (38.2) and Liverpool (42.1). While Nottingham Forest are third in the league in reality, Bournemouth – with a bit more fortune at both ends of the pitch – would be this season’s surprise package.
Bournemouth have already beaten Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham and Manchester United this season, conceding just one goal against four of the established ‘big six’ while scoring eight themselves. They deserved to win all four of those games, too – there was little luck involved.
Their start this season is in stark contrast to their opening to last term when Iraola came into the role after three excellent years at Rayo Vallecano, the final two of which saw them punch above their weight in La Liga after winning promotion in his first.
After no wins and just three points from his opening nine league games in charge in the 2023-24 season, there were reports that Iraola’s job at Bournemouth was on the line coming into a crucial home meeting with fellow unfancied side Burnley at the Vitality Stadium. A comeback win gave Iraola his first Premier League victory at the 10th attempt, and despite losing his next game 6-1 at reigning champions Man City, it turned the tide.
Nineteen points were secured from 21 available in the next seven games, and Iraola’s Bournemouth had arrived. In fact, since that win over Burnley on 28 October 2023, they have won 78 points from 49 games – 10 more than Man Utd (68) and 14 more than Spurs (64). That’s the seventh best record of all Premier League teams in that period.
Bournemouth’s slow start under Iraola shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, in hindsight. His unwillingness to compromise on his football philosophy and preferred playing style meant it was always going to take time to get his methods across to a group of new players – something that former striker Dominic Solanke pointed to when interviewed by The Times in December 2023.
“We couldn’t take in all the information at first,” Solanke said. “For me, I’m pressing with a No. 10 behind me and, at first, our timing was off. We didn’t know when to press or to drop, but now it’s second nature as the manager has gone through it many times and it’s embedded in our heads, and we are all on the same wavelength. It’s natural now.”
The perception of Spanish coaches has often been that they focus on a possession-based game, passing their opponents into submission, but Iraola heavily bases his approach around what they do without the ball, in particular, pressing opponents high up the pitch.
The season before he took the Bournemouth job, only Bayern Munich (73) forced more high turnovers that led to a shot across the top five European leagues than Iraola’s Rayo Vallecano (68). That high-intensity pressing game has followed him over to Bournemouth, where they are now one of the most impressive teams out of possession in Europe.
As Solanke explained, it was quite a big shift for Bournemouth players to get their heads around.
Under previous manager Gary O’Neil, they were one of the most passive teams for pressing in the division. No side attempted fewer shots from high turnovers than they did (36), while their average start distance of open-play possessions was just 39.4 metres from their own goal line.
Since Iraola took over, Bournemouth have had the fifth-most shots from high turnovers (93) and have the fifth-highest start distance (42.4m) in the Premier League. His side have averaged nine high turnovers per game, two more per game than under O’Neil (7).
Top scorer Solanke was a key player in Iraola’s pressing plan. However, a summer transfer to Tottenham Hotspur meant the Spaniard needed to find a replacement, not only for goals but also his demands off the ball. The Englishman ranked higher than every other player in the Premier League last season for pressures made (1,242), pressures in the final third (703) and pressures in the final third resulting in a turnover (142).
Iraola hasn’t been able to replace those numbers like-for-like, but collectively, his attacking players have ensured that Bournemouth’s pressing game in the final third of the pitch hasn’t faltered without Solanke.
Bournemouth sit second behind Solanke’s Spurs for total pressures in the final third (1,276) and pressures resulting in a turnover of possession in the final third (230) in the Premier League this season. If anything, they’ve become even more effective without Solanke in the side.
They have averaged seven more pressures in the final third per game this season (63.8) compared to 2023-24 (56.6), and two more turnovers per game following a final-third pressure (11.5 this season, 9.7 last).
While Solanke again leads the league rankings for pressures leading to a turnover in the final third of the pitch this season (81 – amazingly, 30 more than any other player), four different Bournemouth players are in the top 20 for this metric – Evanilson (45), Antoine Semenyo (36), Justin Kluivert (31) and Marcus Tavernier (31). No other team has more than two players in the top 20.
Bournemouth’s excellent out-of-possession game may take a hit in upcoming weeks, however, with Evanilson ruled out for the foreseeable future with a metatarsal fracture and Tavernier sidelined with a thigh injury, though he is expected to return before his Brazilian teammate.
A further injury to forward Enes Ünal, who is set for a long spell out with an ACL tear, has left the Cherries light in attack. Dango Ouattara did well in the No. 9 role during the 5-1 FA Cup win over West Brom at the weekend, scoring a first-half brace, but it’s still an unfamiliar role for the 22-year-old.
Fellow young forward Daniel Jebbison also scored in that game after coming off the bench following his recall from an unproductive loan spell at Watford in the Championship, but based on his poor performances while at the Hornets, he likely won’t be the answer to Bournemouth’s needs and they may have to delve into the transfer market in January.
Whoever comes into the side to replace the sidelined talent will need to be in tune with Bournemouth’s ability to attack at pace.
Bournemouth have a direct speed of 2.08 metres per second this season – the highest in the Premier League, indicating their ability to hit the opposition quickly in transition. This is not too dissimilar to last season (1.96 m/s) when they trailed only West Ham (1.97 m/s).
Iraola’s side also like to strike when opponents are in a chaotic defensive state. When the opposition have recently lost the ball and not had time to reorganise their defensive shape, that’s classed as a defensive state in transition.
Thanks to Bournemouth’s high press and its success in winning the ball back from opponents, they have attempted the most shots in transition in the Premier League this season (138). They’ve also had the highest proportion of shots in transition (43.0%); no other team has recorded as many as 40% of their attempts in transition this term.
As shown earlier, Bournemouth could be even higher in the table than they are. One of the main reasons for that is how wasteful they’ve been in front of goal.
Despite attempting the second-most non-penalty shots in the Premier League this season (327) behind Man City (340), they have converted just 7.6% of those into goals. That conversion rate is the fifth worst in the Premier League, and the four teams lower than them in the rankings all sit inside the league’s bottom seven.
It’s not like they haven’t been generating good-quality shots, either. The average xG of their non-penalty shots has been 0.108 – the eighth-best in the competition. Put simply, the expected conversion rate of their shots on average should be 10.8%, and they are falling some way short of that.
Luckily for Bournemouth, they haven’t really been made to pay for their lack of clinical finishing in front of goal. They beat Spurs 1-0 despite having a host of chances worth 3.71 xG, while they somehow salvaged a comeback win deep into added time away at Ipswich three days later after missing a host of good chances.
Iraola and Bournemouth face a difficult period ahead in the Premier League, with four successive matches against teams currently in the top five, coupled with those unhelpful injuries to attacking players.
But with the Premier League on course to get an extra place in the UEFA Champions League next season based on the Opta supercomputer’s projections (97.8% chance), there’s a strong chance that a top-seven finish this season will secure European football next season.
Bournemouth currently occupy seventh place, and with established clubs like Spurs, Man Utd and Aston Villa struggling to build consistent form this season, they are pressing their claim… intensely.
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