What's wrong at AFC Bournemouth and how to fix it

Alex Keble analyses why two teams are struggling to match their exploits from last season and are languishing in the bottom six.

AFC Bournemouth

It says a lot about Andoni Iraola’s baptism of fire that despite remaining winless after eight Premier League matches, AFC Bournemouth’s 3-0 defeat at Everton last time out is their first bad result of the season.

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Bournemouth have faced four of last season’s top six, losing all four matches. They have also drawn against Chelsea, West Ham United and Brentford prior to the loss at Goodison Park which – despite the Cherries’ league position – really did come out of the blue.

It was certainly bad preparation for an important moment this weekend when the Vitality Stadium welcomes back Gary O’Neil, the man sacked in the summer after leading Bournemouth to safety against the odds.

A direct comparison between Bournemouth under Iraola and Wolves under O’Neil is unavoidable.

Defeat for the hosts will surely trigger some introspection after that controversial switch in June; victory could signify the dawn of the new era as Bournemouth prepare for a kinder run of fixtures. 

The latter is certainly possible because the underlying numbers suggest that things aren’t as bad as they might seem for Bournemouth.

Iraola’s dramatic tactical shift explained

Under O'Neil, Bournemouth used a backs-to-the-wall defensive style aimed at absorbing pressure and punishing opponents on the break, while their new head coach is a Marcelo Bielsa-inspired tactical mind who believes in front-foot football.

To put it another way, O’Neil is a pragmatist and Iraola an idealist.

The basic principles under Iraola are to press high and hard, and to move in vertical lines. His teams race forward in the transition to take advantage of the maverick, disruptive energy created by mixing furious running off the ball with intense running on it.

There is a reason why Leeds United reportedly wanted to replace Bielsa with Iraola. Last season, only Bayern Munich, with 73, forced more high turnovers that produced a shot across the "big five" European leagues than Iraola’s Rayo Vallecano – who incidentally defied expectations to finish 11th in LaLiga, beating Real Madrid and Barcelona along the way.

The big question is whether Bournemouth have enough quality in their squad to play in such a high-risk fashion, and indeed whether the move from reactive football to something so wildly proactive is happening too quickly?

We don’t yet have an answer. But there are as many reasons to be optimistic as pessimistic.

Vertical possession has improved Cherries attack

The high quality of Bournemouth’s opponents thus far skews the data: facing so many top teams means their defensive and offensive stats fall short of what we can expect over a full campaign.

This is why the numbers so far are particularly impressive.

Bournemouth are averaging 44 per cent possession compared to 40.4 per cent in 2022/23. Seeing more of the ball is leading to improvements in chance creation.

In a host of on-the-ball metrics they look substantially healthier, remarkable considering the calibre of opposition.

Bournemouth attacking comparison

The numbers above are up considerably in terms of their overall play, even if there is room for big improvement inside the two boxes, which we will come to later.

What stands out most of all, in terms of the style shift, are those take-ons, a rise of almost 30 per cent that takes them to second in the Premier League behind Tottenham Hotspur.

Now holding more of the ball and pushing forward in straight lines, Bournemouth are taking more touches in the final third – up from 112.0 per match to 139.9 - and generally look more dangerous in attack.

New defensive strategy is helping at both ends

Bournemouth’s new desire to press high up the pitch has taken effect and, with some caveats, is starting to work.

Their PPDA (passes per defensive action, which measures the intensity of a team’s pressing) has dropped from 15.7 in 2022/23 to 11.5 this season, a dramatic change capturing the shift in style. More evidence can be found in the number of fouls they commit, up from 10.3 per match to 13.9 – the second-most in the division.

And if the aim is to win the ball high to create chances, then the numbers here look promising. Last season they recorded a defensive action that led to a shot only seven times. They have already equalled that number in 2023/24, taking Bournemouth from rock-bottom in that metric all the way up to first.

Similarly they have already scored twice from high turnovers, half their entire tally last season.

Just as significant is the fact that, by shifting the team so much higher up the pitch compared with O’Neil’s low block, Iraola has kept the ball away from the Bournemouth goal, as is evidenced by a host of data points.

Bournemouth defensive comparison

The table above shows the massive drop in opposition progressive passes and passes into the final third. Now that Bournemouth are pushed up, it is far more difficult to shift the ball into dangerous areas.

These numbers reflect a dramatic change in tactics, especially bearing in mind the quality of their opposition. The figures will only rise when Bournemouth play more bottom-half clubs.

Bournemouth still conceding plenty

For the time being, Bournemouth are coming up short in the two boxes – where it really counts.

Bournemouth’s Expected Goals Against (xGA) is 18.6, the second-highest behind Sheffield United, while their shots faced has actually risen from 16.3 to 18.0 per match under Iraola.

Again, facing so many top-six teams skews the numbers, although their poor xGA is partly due to their new strategy of passing out from the back under pressure.

Bournemouth are dispossessed 11.8 times per match, ranking second in the Premier League behind Crystal Palace. Only Palace and Spurs, with 25, have been tackled more times in their own third. Most worryingly of all, Bournemouth have made a competition-high seven errors leading to shots, and are already closing in on last season’s total of 10.

The question we cannot yet answer is whether Bournemouth’s players are not good enough to avoid losing the ball in their own third, or if they have been unlucky to have already faced so many strong high-pressers such as Chelsea and Liverpool this season?

Scoring goals could be a season-long issue

A greater concern is Bournemouth’s inability to score goals. They have netted five times from an xG of 8.92, giving them a -3.22 delta that is the fourth-worst in the Premier League.

Like last season, when Dominic Solanke’s six goals and seven assists accounted for 35 per cent of their 37 league goals, Bournemouth are too reliant on one attacker. So far in 2023/24 he has scored or assisted four of their five league goals (80 per cent).

Solanke's MW1 goal v West Ham

Summer signings Hamed Traore and Justin Kluivert are yet to register a goal or assist, and there is a lack of quality in the final third, although the return of David Brooks – who assisted for Wales against Croatia this week – is a big boost.

At the risk of labouring the point, different opposition should also help. Left-back Milos Kerkez, who scored or assisted five times in the Europa League for AZ Alkmaar last season, and Max Aarons are yet to shine, but Iraola’s two new full-backs will be able to get forward more regularly over the coming weeks.

What’s more, the Cherries have been unlucky with injuries to their two star signings, Tyler Adams and Alex Scott, who were supposed to be the foundation of a new midfield. They have yet to play a minute between them.

Scott, expected back this month, was in the top five Championship midfielders for progressive carries last season, with 88. He can inject greater creative energy into the team.

Everton match needs to be an anomaly

All of this optimistic analysis counts for nothing if Sean Dyche’s success is a sign of things to come.

Everton had 25 shots, the joint-most against Bournemouth this season, and amassed an xG of 2.4, while the game-changing moment came when James Garner capitalised on a slip from Illia Zabarnyi.

If Bournemouth’s desire to play expansively and vertically, to pass out from the back, and to press constantly allows fast-transition teams to play a direct game straight through them, Iraola is in trouble.

But that rarely happened at Rayo Vallecano, and it is just as likely that Bournemouth simply met a rejuvenated Everton at the wrong moment.

They will hope that’s the case. Bournemouth host Wolves and Burnley in their next two matches knowing that anything less than two wins will leave them in a perilous position.

No matter how bad their luck with injuries and the fixture list, and no matter how impressive Bournemouth’s numbers are, this is a results business. Iraola needs his first Premier League win. It has to come before the end of the month.

Also in this series

Part 2: What's gone wrong at Brentford and how to fix it