Bournemouth ended up playing a pivotal role in the story of Everton’s 2022/23 season but will their shock sacking of Gary O’Neil prove good news for the Blues?
Perhaps the Cherries thought they could drop the bombshell while England were playing out the fourth day of their first Ashes Test match of the summer against Australia at Edgbaston – perhaps not given that their owner is American – but the shock decision got tongues wagging across the football world with positive reactions to O’Neil’s dismissal proving as elusive as the follow-up statement the Blues said was coming “in the next 48 hours” regarding the future of Bill Kenwright and interim board appointments seven days ago.
In what was his first senior managerial role – initially taking over as caretaker but taking control on a ‘permanent’ basis on November 27 – O’Neil came into the role after Bournemouth had just been demolished 9-0 by Liverpool at Anfield but was unbeaten for his first five matches in charge. Steering the side to back-to-back emphatic victories over Everton in the space of four days in November – 4-1 in the Carabao Cup and then 3-0 in the Premier League – he was rewarded with a formal appointment ahead of the World Cup finals despite Marcelo Bielsa, who would later crop up as potential successor for Frank Lampard in January before Sean Dyche was hired, being linked to the position.
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Seven wins between February 18 and April 30, including one over Liverpool when his team were propping up the table, ensured the newly-promoted side reached 39 points and effective survival with a full four games to spare. Everton, who were on their way to posting what proved to be the lowest equivalent points total in their 135-year history in the Football League/Premier League could only look on enviably at being in such a comfortable position with a month still left to play and given the circumstances he was working in, it’s difficult to see what more the fledgling gaffer who turned 40 last month could have done.
Bournemouth ended the campaign with four straight defeats but there was a degree of inevitability to such a finish given that they’d taken care of business early and anyone who was inside Goodison Park on that nervy afternoon of May 28 will know that they didn’t rock up on Merseyside with their flip-flops on. O’Neil had them ultra-competitive – perhaps too much so given the way Dominic Solanke wrestled home keeper Jordan Pickford to the turf after a goal-mouth scramble – as they came worryingly close to proving party-poopers against the Blues.
The club’s chairman, Texan tycoon William P.Foley II, who at 78 is almost a year older than his Everton counterpart Kenwright, claimed he was “grateful” for “Gary’s achievement last season” but after O’Neil was reportedly awoken this morning by a 6am phone call to tell him that he was getting fired, Bournemouth’s statement at 12:30pm that he had gone detailed that “the appointment of a new head coach will be announced imminently.” Unlike Everton’s latest correspondence, the Dorset outfit were good to their word with O’Neil’s replacement Andoni Iraola being unveiled just two-and-a-half hours later.
Iraola who you might ask? Well he’s the same age as his predecessor but has a more exotic-sounding name and after guiding Madrid’s third club Rayo Vallecano to 11th place in La Liga last season, those in charge at the Vitality Stadium probably think it’s fashionable to hire a Spaniard given that the Premier League’s top two, Manchester City and Arsenal, have got Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta; Unai Emery did well as Aston Villa last term and Julen Lopetegui kept Wolverhampton Wanderers up.
Only time will tell how this decision impacts on Everton but for every Lopetegui there’s a Javi Gracia and while Dyche knows inside out what is required of this division, it remains to be seen how Iraola and his methods are adapted on the south coast. He could of course prove to be Bournemouth’s version of Mauricio Pochettino who was still a relative unknown on these shores when he replaced Nigel Adkins at Southampton back in January 2013 but after a season of getting far more bang for their buck than the Blues, the hope at Goodison Park must be that one of their potential rivals have backfired with this brutal decision which smacks of a vanity appointment.
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