‘I don’t know what I want to do next season’

Andoni Iraola is confident he has chosen the right time to leave Bournemouth and admitted he did not want to jeopardise the work he has done by staying too long.

Iraola this week announced his three-year spell at the Vitality Stadium would come to an end this summer and he will be much coveted by other clubs after building an exciting young team that play front-foot football.

Bournemouth were desperate to keep the 43-year-old but Iraola feels now is the right time to seek a new challenge.

He said: “It has been a decision that has taken me a lot of time to take, it has not been a clear decision. Always during this process I have been talking to the club about all the situations. They were aware that this could happen.

“There is not always one main reason, I think that the decision I have taken is because probably I don’t want to risk the feeling I have right now of satisfaction of these three seasons. You try to envisage yourself in a possible fourth or fifth season and everything costs more.

“We as human beings, we get tired of watching always the same face and I suppose I have decided that this was the right moment to put an end to this journey, which for me has been really, really special.”

Bournemouth are in a great place – Iraola

Iraola has already been linked with Newcastle, who Bournemouth face tomorrow, and the likes of Manchester United and Real Madrid.

Wherever he ends up, he knows he will miss what he currently has on the South Coast.

“I think the club is in a great place,” he added. “I have things in this club that I will not find anywhere else. I come every day to work here with a smile and this is very valuable for me.

“It is not a decision that I had super clear. I am not going to convince you because it has taken me this season. Sometimes I have been thinking ‘oh definitely I am going to stay here’. Other times I have been thinking ‘I am not going to continue here’.

“It is a matter of feeling and there is a moment where you have to take the decision and this is the decision I have taken. I prefer to make the mistake of thinking maybe I could have stayed one year more rather than thinking I have stayed one year too much.

“There is a small margin you are playing with and it is what it is.”

What is Andoni Iraola’s Premier League record at Bournemouth?

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I have nothing lined up, insists Iraola

The former Rayo Vallecano boss is now in a strong position heading into the summer but insists he does not know yet where he will end up. He’s also keen to finish the season strongly with a Bournemouth side that are still in with a shout of European qualification following last weekend’s win at Arsenal.

He said: “The decision was not about any other club, there was no other club involved – it was about either continuing here or not continuing here.

“I don’t know what I want to do next season. I don’t know if I am going to coach a team, a club. I don’t know if I am going to coach an international team. I don’t know if I am going to coach in this continent. I have no idea what is going to happen.

“I don’t know if you are going to believe me, but it is the truth. And also I don’t have any rush to want to know it. I have taken a big decision for me, now I want to focus on what we have in this moment. These next six games are massive for us.

“There is going to be time to think [later] if we are going to have to think on something else.”