'Tis the winter of discombobulation for AFC Bournemouth. No win in months, their top scorer with a foot out of the door. It would be quite enough at some clubs for a boss to have been sacked twice over, with Ange Postecoglou popping up in between.
When Andoni Iraola arrived at Bournemouth in 2023, he went 13-and-a-half hours and nine agonising games without a win. With a draw against Chelsea to round off 2025, Iraola beat that unwanted record – 10 games – with their last three points collected before Halloween, in Sean Dyche's first Nottingham Forest fixture.
Speaking to FourFourTwo last year, Iraola actually told us that the club itself, “were the ones presenting me with data to say that we were doing well”. And since their last win, there have been good signs: four goals at Old Trafford could have won the game, but for moments of individual genius against them, while Burnley got a last-minute equaliser just before Christmas, and the recent 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge was well-earned.
But otherwise things have been bad bad. Granted, the season started with a mad push for Champions League football – it was always likely that the xG gods would swing the pendulum back the other way – but the lack of belief is something staggering, and Bournemouth only look a threat against teams that attack them.
The visit of Arsenal typified it. Two sides, both with Basque pressing patterns, and the Cherries actually took the lead, thanks to a freak assist from Gabriel. Sure, Mikel Arteta's side came back into the game via Gabriel redeeming himself and two cutbacks to Declan Rice, but it was yet another loss that epitomised the wider problem. Bournemouth's football is admirable and exhausting: particularly the latter when they lose.
Form is one thing; the future is quite another. Antoine Semenyo is largely expected to swap the smallest ground in the league for Manchester City. Bournemouth aren't a one-man team, but it points to a larger iceberg on the horizon.
The Cherries sold £200 million worth of talent in the summer to the likes of Real Madrid, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain and, well, Brentford. The jury is still out on most of the replacements (though Adrien Truffert looks like the grown-up version of Milos Kerkez). Bafode Diakite looks more like a right-back than a centre-back. Dorde Petrovic divides fans more than Kepa, which is impressive. Amine Adli is yet to put in a solid performance. Ben Gannon-Doak has played just four times in the Premier League, and for every Dominic Solanke, Liverpool have a habit of giving Bournemouth a Jordon Ibe.
Iraola has led this side to two successive record points tallies, with the club responding by flogging the silver. It happens, that's no criticism. Clubs do what they have to.
When Brighton have done the same, they've reinvested heavily in expensive Championship buys, like Joao Pedro and Georginio Rutter, while Charalampos Kostoulas was a £30m gamble that the club earned through savvy selling. Brentford were happy to drop £40m on a Prem-proven Bryan Mbeumo replacement, in Dango Ouattara; just as they were to break their transfer record for Igor Thiago, when Ivan Toney eventually left the club.
The ambition is a little hazier at the Vitality Stadium. Iraola was worried for his job during his first winless drought in English football. He's now stalling on committing to a new contract during the second. The loss of recruitment guru Richard Hughes to Liverpool hasn't exactly helped.
It's a similar position that Crystal Palace find themselves in. While there's a case that Iraola is already Bournemouth's second-best manager ever behind Eddie Howe, there are fewer debates in South London that Oliver Glasner is Palace's greatest-ever boss. He, like Iraola, will surely be snapped up by a massive club sooner rather than later. And after recent success, the foundation is there for the Eagles to push on a little and establish themselves a little further.
This is The New Midtable: traditional Football League sides wedged safely between eighth and 14th, so long as their smart scouting network can guarantee a yearly windfall, and they have an up-and-coming manager likely to go to Liverpool or Tottenham or Bayern Munich or Juventus at some point when those clubs realise how good they are – but for now, delivering over-performance.
See Leicester City. That's why, despite being in Europe, Palace fans are watching Glasner's press conferences nervously.
Bournemouth look more at risk. This month is pivotal not just for the season but for the mid-term future of the very club, to prove to Iraola that they match his ambitions.
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