Iraola warns Bournemouth players of complacency ahead of Luton test after Man Utd mauling
Andoni Iraola does not want his Bournemouth players to bask in the glory of their demolition of Manchester United as they attempt to secure Premier League safety.
The Cherries claimed a first ever victory at Old Trafford last Saturday when they beat Erik ten Hag’s floundering side 3-0, and will head into this weekend’s clash with promoted Luton looking for a third successive top-flight win.
However, while thrilled with both the performance and the result on a remarkable afternoon in the club’s history, head coach Iraola is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
He said: “I think not just the game, last performances, last results, they are always very good confidence-wise. But we still need more wins, need more points. We want to keep it going, keep this good form as long as we can.
“Tomorrow we have a different game from the other one, from the one away against United, but it’s going to be also very tough.
“We have to know that we still want more points. The league is really, really competitive. For us, tomorrow’s game against Luton is really important because they are the first team in the relegation spots, so for us to win against them, it would be very, very important.
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“But we also know that it’s going to be tough because all the games against Luton, nobody is winning them easily, nobody.
“It’s difficult to play well against them because they are really competitive and they also have had very good performances this past week.”
Back-to-back victories over Crystal Palace and Manchester United have eased Bournemouth into 14th place in the table, 10 points clear of the Hatters in 18th, and that has eased the pressure on summer appointee Iraola, whose first nine league games at the helm yielded no wins and just three points.
Asked if that had boosted his belief, he said: “Yes, but it’s something that we were seeing in the previous games also.
“We are coming from a very good result, but it’s true that we started badly this season, so we still need to recover the points we lost and we want to keep it going, keep the good performances.
“Obviously we know that we are (eventually) going to lose, we are going to tire, but keep the level, the standard, the way the players are playing now because mid, long-term, I think it’s going to give us results.”
Iraola has no fresh selection problems ahead of the game, although Hamed Traore, Alex Scott and Max Aarons are still out.
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