As is the case at most clubs in modern-day football, the person in charge of the day-to-day workings of a football club’s squad is not the same person who assembles it.
AFC Bournemouth have been moving further and further away from having a football club manager since the departure of Eddie Howe in 2020.
Jason Tindall, Jonathan Woodgate, Scott Parker, Gary O’Neil and Andoni Iraola have all held the position of “head coach” on the south coast, with player recruitment being led by Richard Hughes until recently.
Hughes has now left his role as AFC Bournemouth’s first-team technical director to become the sporting director at Liverpool.
So does this become a key transfer window for AFC Bournemouth under a new multi-club structure? Simply to prove that AFC Bournemouth can hold some stability under a new way of working? Future transfer signings need to prove to be successful for the model to show integrity.
Tim Bezbatchenko has been announced as President of Black Knight Football Club (BKFC), with the former MLS executive leading American businessman Bill Foley’s multi-club model, which includes a portfolio of clubs including the Cherries, Auckland in New Zealand, Lorient in France and Hibernian in Scotland.
Tiago Pinto is AFC Bournemouth’s new president of football operations, whilst Simon Francis is AFC Bournemouth’s technical director.
But whilst the recruitment team put all of their efforts into identifying targets, either to sign for AFC Bournemouth directly or the other clubs in the portfolio, that doesn’t mean that the head coach has zero input at all.
Speaking to the Daily Echo, Iraola said…
“…obviously the opinion you give after watching two or three games is not the same value as the people that are working on it, they follow the player. Sometimes they have travelled to watch him live.
“So it is just my one revision, but it is not the most important definitely and it shouldn’t be.”
“Of course we talk about the profiles we need.
“We talk about the positions we need and these kind of things.
“And obviously if I know the player, I can be much more helpful and my opinion could be stronger.
“But I understand there are a lot of people working during the year only focusing on these things.
“I have to focus on my job, that is to manage a Premier League team, which takes you a lot of time and is the most important thing we have to do.”
Your say…
Waz afcb said…
Left-back is the obvious answer (to what position is a priority) but I went with number ten because I feel that this is the one area of the team that we could potentially recruit in to really lift our level.
I really like Kluivert as a player and he did a good job in that position but I feel that his strengths are better suited to being a winger and he does have the tendency to go through spells where he is pretty anonymous. This is the case for the majority of wingers but can become a problem when it happens to your number ten as you are relying on that player to pick up spaces to progress you up the pitch.
I think that he was the best option in that position last season but I believe that we can improve in that area still. – To join the conversation, click here.