Man Utd should consider hiring Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola and join the Basque coaching revolution

The 41-year-old has got Bournemouth punching way above their weight and earlier this season he orchestrated United's joint-heaviest defeat of the season.

Iraola has not yet been properly linked with the Old Trafford hotseat but he has been put on the shortlist at another prestigious club on the lookout for a new manager, with Barcelona considering him as a successor to Xavi Hernandez. And United should also be looking at the man Jurgen Klopp, Eddie Howe and Pep Guardiola have all lavished praise on amid an outstanding debut season in England.

Iraola was under pressure from the start when he was appointed successor to Gary O'Neil, who was sacked last summer despite steering Bournemouth to safety. But the club's American owner Bill Foley wanted a more ambitious coach and made a bet on the former Athletic Club and New York City full-back.

Iraola had been previously approached by Leeds United and had worked miracles with the ramshackle Rayo Vallecano in Spain, including masterminding three wins over Barcelona and a victory against Real Madrid.

He had considerable teething problems as Bournemouth failed to win any of their opening nine games while losing six times, including being beaten by O'Neil's Wolves. But Iraola just needed a little more time before everything clicked, with Bournemouth winning seven of their next nine games to soar clear of the relegation zone.

And the most impressive win of all came at Old Trafford, when the Cherries destroyed United 3-0 in December, inflicting the joint-heaviest defeat on the Red Devils this season along with treble winners Manchester City. It would have been the biggest had Dango Ouattara's late goal not been harshly ruled out by VAR.

The knives were out for Ten Hag after the game and it could be argued that he would not have survived the debacle had the club not been in limbo at the time with its strategic review then still unresolved.

But Bournemouth deserved huge credit for the way they took United apart with a masterful gameplan devised by Iraola based on a high defensive line and targeted pressing. And that was when the Premier League's biggest names began to sit up and take notice.

"I didn't know much about him but I really had time to admire them and what he's doing there. They had a difficult start but they turned it around, wow, that's real coaching," Klopp said in January. "He found a way to set this team up they have a really good mix, they play football in a fine direction. They're really good, really compact. That's proper."

Guardiola described Bournemouth as "completely alive, aggressive, and well organised" before City's trip to the Vitality Stadium in February and after the champions came through a testing final 15 minutes to win 1-0, he called his players "supermen".

Bournemouth have the fifth-lowest wage bill in the Premier League but under Iraola they sit in 12th, six places and eight points below United, who reportedly pay the highest wages in England. And that's why INEOS should be taking a look at the forward-thinking Basque coach.

Minority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made it clear that he does not think the solution to United's many problems is to make more lavish signings, talking of the need to "walk to the right solution, not run to the wrong one". He has been plotting ways to save the club money and given United are teetering on the edge of the limits of the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability Rules, especially as they are set to miss out on the Champions League, cutbacks will need to be made across the squad.

Iraola has a track record for achieving a lot with a little and he could help United thrive with fewer resources. He also fits the mould for the model INEOS want to build, which envisages the coach only focusing on working with the players on the pitch and leaving recruitment to incoming sporting director Dan Ashworth and technical director Jason Wilcox.

Iraola is a studious coach who loves to observe other teams and styles. He has developed a friendship with Newcastle boss Eddie Howe, who came to watch his Rayo side train while he was on a sabbatical. He is also immersed in modern coaching technologies. He loves using 'Media Coach', a match data analytics and visualisation platform designed by La Liga, and laments the lack of an equivalent programme in England.

He has always kept a close eye on Bournemouth's physical data and the fact he knew his players were in good shape and could cope with his style of play allowed him to persist with his tactics in the knowledge they would soon pay off.

Iraola's thirst for knowledge and self-improvement would also chime with INEOS' outlook. Director of sport Sir Dave Brailsford used data forensically while in charge of INEOS Grenadiers cycling team and its predecessor Team Sky and he and the other directors of Nice unearthed current coach Francesco Farioli after mining the data on his work in the Turkish Super Lig.

Brailsford is also reported to be a keen admirer of Graham Potter due to his scientific approach to coaching. Potter was a coach in the ascendancy until he took over at Chelsea, a club that in the last few years has proved just as unmanageable as United.

His ill-fated tenure at Stamford Bridge does not seem to have affected his standing at INEOS, and he is still in demand on the strength of his achievements with Brighton. But Iraola's record in less than a season with Bournemouth is even more impressive than Potter's work while on the south coast.

Brighton finished 15th in Potter's debut season after he succeeded Chris Hughton, then 16th, before coming ninth in his third. Bournemouth are already two points better off than they were at the end of last season and have seven games left. A top 10 finish is easily within reach, while a late push for European football cannot be ruled out. If INEOS are considering Potter for the Old Trafford dugout, then they should also be casting their eye over Iraola.

Many pundits and observers have highlighted a lack of clear style at United under Ten Hag. The manager's tactics certainly have varied a lot across his two seasons in charge. The Dutchman began by wanting to play the possession football that had served him well at Ajax but the shock 4-0 defeat by Brentford in his second game prompted him to reconsider and build a team based on quick transitions. That worked for much of last season but his ideas have appeared muddled this campaign.

He signed Andre Onana to help the team build from the back but they have tended to look uncomfortable in possession and counterattacking remains their modus operandi. But the key to playing on the break is having a good defence and United's backline has been catastrophic, conceding more shots than any other team in the Premier League in 2024.

Jamie Carragher offered a detailed critique of Ten Hag' plans after the 2-1 defeat by Fulham, pointing out that the Dutchman was trying to play with a high attacking line and a low defensive block, leading to acres of space in the middle. Iraola has also built a team that are excellent in transitions but his style is more coherent, based around aggressive pressing and playing with a high line.

He explained in pre-season: "We will play a little bit higher up the pitch, as much as we can in their half. We have the work rate, especially from our front players. They can sustain the press, make us play high, so we are closer when we regain possession to their goal."

"He doesn’t want the game to be under control: he wants things to happen,” said Rayo Vallecano midfielder Mario Suárez of his former coach last year while speaking to The Guardian. “Rob in the opposition’s half, direct, open the pitch, get into the area. We never changed our style. There would be adaptations depending on opponents but the idea remained. The players know exactly what to do."

These testimonies contrast with Ten Hag's methods. The United manager has said on many occasions that the number of injuries his side have had have prevented them from playing the way he wants. Lisandro Martinez's absence for most of the campaign and Luke Shaw's long periods out have been cited as factors in him having to redesign how the team plays.

But a top coach should be able to get his whole squad to carry out his ideas, not just a select few. And that seems to be the case with Iraola. Top scorer Dominic Solanke explained to The Times how practising the coach's methods eventually paid off. "We couldn’t take in all the information at first. I’m pressing with a No.10 behind me and, at first, our timing was off. We didn’t know when to press or to drop," he said. "But now it’s second nature, as the manager has gone through it many times."

Iraola also remained certain that his style could work with his new side, even in the darkest moments. "The reality is we didn't win a Premier League game until week 10 which is a long time. The team were attacking well, generating chances and scoring goals but we weren't defending well," he told Spanish newspaper AS.

"I could feel that we had got to a point when we had to start getting results but everyone believed in what we were doing and we wanted to go towards a determined style. With time we were proven right and started getting very positive results."

A week before the season began, one fifth of the Premier League's coaches hailed from the Iraola's home province of Gipuzkoa, the smallest in Spain and which has a population of just 720,000. Julen Lopetegui's sudden departure from Wolves brought the number down to three but the incredible success of Alonso, Arteta and Emery has ensured the area has continued to get massive media attention.

Iraola grew up alongside Alonso and Arteta while playing for local club Antiguoko before joining the youth team of Athletic Club in neighbouring Vizcaya while his friends made their way at Real Sociedad. The fact that the region has produced so many top players and coaches is astonishing and yet not all that surprising given the dedication to sport in the region and across the Basque Country.

Cycling is also hugely popular in the hilly region as are the more parochial sports such as Pelota, a game similar to squash but played with your hands, and Aizkolaritza, essentially competitive wood chopping. But football reigns supreme, as can be seen in the fact that one million people came out to join Athletic Club's Copa del Rey victory parade.

"[The number of famous Basque coaches] gets a lot of attention because it's such a small place but there's a very big culture of football in general and especially football," Iraola told AS. "There's Athletic, Real Sociedad, Osasuna, clubs that focus a lot on youth football, there are very good coaches who we have learned from."

Arteta explained last year: "First of all it’s the passion for the game, for football. The education that we get and the level of coaches there is really good. Everybody takes care of the academy. You have to see Real Sociedad, Atletico Bilbao, Eibar, all those teams do fantastic work to raise talent and it’s not a coincidence that a lot of players have come through that."

Since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement in 2013, United have a bad habit of appointing big-name coaches several years, if not decades, after they were at their peak. Louis van Gaal's biggest success was winning the Champions League with Ajax in 1995 and when United appointed him 19 years later, his methods were outdated.

The club made the same mistake with Jose Mourinho, who was appointed in 2016 not long after presiding over one of the worst title defences in Premier League history with Chelsea, with his side hovering above the relegation zone when he was sacked by the Blues. The Mourinho era at Old Trafford is remembered more for the bitter fallouts with Paul Pogba and press conference tirades than the tactical masterclasses of his time at Porto, Inter and his first spell with Chelsea.

Ten Hag was the flavour of the month when he guided Ajax to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2019 but he did not take over at United until 2022. And his stock has fallen dramatically in his second season. Ten Hag looked to be part of the Dutch renaissance but right now the men at the forefront of modern coaching hail from a tiny Basque region. And United would do well to ride the wave while it is at its greatest height.

So when Brailsford and the rest of United's delegation head to the south coast on Saturday, they should make room in their diaries to speak to Iraola and join the Basque revelation that is sweeping modern football.