Eamon Dunphy: Manchester City need look no further for next manager when Pep Guardiola leaves

The Premier League giants moved to second in the table thanks to Sunday’s win over Bournemouth

Nico O’Reilly of Manchester City celebrates scoring his side’s third goal with Pep Guardiola(Image: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)

Bournemouth were second best to Manchester City on Sunday, but their manager should be in pole position to replace Pep Guardiola at the Etihad.

Andoni Iraola came from nowhere to take over at the Cherries in the summer of 2023.

A quick look at his CV shows a short spell in Cyprus with AEK Larnaca, where he won his only trophy so far – the Cypriot version of the Community Shield. Within seven months, however, he was bombed out.

Next up was a little-known Spanish second tier club Mirandes, where a good cup run took him to another side in the same division, Rayo Vallecano.

After another good cup run and promotion to La Liga, Premier League clubs started sniffing around, even if he wasn’t an obvious candidate for the English top-flight.

Bournemouth took a chance and they haven’t looked back since.

It’s hardly the resume of someone who could follow in the footsteps of that great Catalan Guardiola, but if City don’t seriously consider the brilliant Basque native, then there’s a screw loose somewhere in their recruitment department.

The season is only 10 games old, but there is no way Bournemouth should be anywhere near the top-four.

Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola and Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola(Image: James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)

Look at the players they lost this summer – Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid, Milos Kerkez to Liverpool and Illia Zabarnyi to PSG are the headline departures, bringing in over €150million in transfer fees.

Most managers would be tearing their hair out to lose so many key players, but Iraola just shrugs his shoulders and gets on with it.

He has worked miracles at Dean Court, guiding the club to 12th and then ninth in his first two seasons. And I fully expect them to finish in the top-six this time around.

What Iraola has done after an end-of-season fire-sale, with a bunch of journey men, is nothing short of remarkable.

The only difference between City and Bournemouth on Sunday was Erling Haaland, who scored the two goals that made the difference.

Trailing by two, Iraola’s men kept pushing forward right to the very end. The character in this team speaks volumes to their manager. In three of the last four games before yesterday’s visit to City, they scored four times after the 90th minute.

I’d love to see Iraola on the training ground, to get an insight into the style that is driving Bournemouth’s impressive start to the season.

And I doubt I’m the only one – directors of football all over the Premier League must be building up big dossiers on the Cherries chief.

He hails from that tough Basque region of Spain, from Bilbao, a place I know well.

Bournemouth is also a club I know quite well. I played there many times and it’s a very small club, whose natural home really should be in the third or fourth tier. Their ground only holds 10,000 people.

I don’t know how they can survive in the Premier League. Not just survive, in fact, but compete against the endless wealth of clubs such as Manchester City.

Bournemouth were in receivership when Eddie Howe took over, and he brought them all the way to the Premier League. It was a great story.

When he left for Newcastle, that probably should have been the end of it. But after trying out a few different options, they plucked Iraola from Spain and they hit the managerial jackpot once again.

City might not be the force they were when they were winning the league every single year, but they are still a very good side.

Yesterday’s win was a really important one for them and it sent them up to second in the Premier League.

They don’t have the Kevin De Bruyne star factor anymore, but they do have that unbelievable goal machine Haaland, who has now scored 26 this season for club and country.

The scary thing is, he is getting better and better. He is more mature than when he first arrived in the Premier League, and he is quicker and stronger than when he joined City.

It’s because of him that City are contenders for the Premier League this season.

Haaland is a very special player and some eejits were having a go at him earlier in the season, but I could see that he was on for a special campaign.

Erling Haaland of Manchester City and Pep Guardiola(Image: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)

I’m sure Iarola would relish the opportunity to work with someone of Haaland’s quality.

Pep congratulated the Bournemouth players after the final whistle and rightly so. They deserve all the praise coming their way.

And so too does their manager, who has to be one of the top contenders when Pep eventually walks away from the Etihad.

He has done an amazing job and he has turned Bournemouth into a team that no one wants to play against. They are tough, but in a good way. They play really good football and have plenty of goals in their side.

Iraola has a great demeanour and you can tell that his players like him. He seems to be a really classy guy.

Top marks to whoever did the scouting at Bournemouth, because they landed a top manager. The only problem is, just like their star players, he will end up being poached by a bigger club.

I would love to see him with the resources of one of the Premier League’s big spending teams – and Manchester City could do a lot worse than Iraola when Pep finally calls it a day.

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