Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola is paying little attention to rumours linking him with Real Madrid, and insisted his sole focus is on tomorrow’s game against Wolves.
Reports in Spain this past week have suggested Madrid are taking a close interest in former Rayo Vallecano boss Iraola as they consider a replacement for Carlo Ancelotti at the end of the season.
The 42-year-old has moulded Bournemouth into genuine contenders for a place in next season’s Champions League despite a limited budget and a win over Wolves tomorrow will see them move up to fourth place in the Premier League.
Moving forward together on Saturday 👊 pic.twitter.com/xmh21vQxvj
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) February 19, 2025
That has alerted Madrid but Iraola was not willing to fuel the speculation when asked about the European champions’ interest today.
He said: “You know, you cannot control things that you speak outside of here. But we focus on the next game and really the situation is exactly the same as the past week.
“I’ve been in this business a lot of years already as a player and as a coach, and I know how these things work and what has importance and what doesn’t have importance. And for me, the important thing this week is the game we play tomorrow against Wolves. That is going to be demanding, and it will be a, don’t know if a key game because it’s always an important game, the next one.”
Time to evaluate comes later- Iraola
Bournemouth have lost just one of their last 15 games in all competitions – and that an unfortunate defeat to Liverpool – but Iraola was not interested in the plaudits that are coming his way currently.
He added: “I don’t see it like this.
“For me, these things you analyse or you evaluate or you look at them at the end of the season. We are doing well, it’s true. This season we are playing well quite consistently, but we will see where we finish at the end.
“It’s good to be in a good moment, in a good position right now, but they don’t give you anything in March. You know, it’s at the end of the season when you can achieve or you can see how we’ve done and we’ll see when we are there, not now. Now is not the moment for me to analyse or evaluate or nothing of these things.”
Wary of Wolves
Wolves have improved under Vitor Pereira and Iraola is not expecting an easy game at the Vitality Stadium despite the visitors’ lowly position in the table.
“If you analyse the last, I think eight games they’ve played, they basically played all the teams that are at the top of the table and they’ve always been competitive and tomorrow I expect a very difficult game,” he said.
“I think they have very good individualities. If you see especially their defensive numbers lately, the chances they are conceding lately against the teams they played against, is that they have been very solid defensively.”