Gary O’Neil has been surprisingly sacked as Bournemouth manager, just three weeks after the end of the Premier League season in which the former Bristol City midfielder successfully led the Cherries to 15th place and top-flight survival.
Bournemouth's billionaire American owner Bill Foley claims the decision has been taken in the “best interests” of the club with reports indicating that O’Neil was informed on Monday morning that the hierarchy want to pursue a different brand of football. A few hours after confirming O'Neil's exit, the club appointed former Rayo Vallecano manager and Athletic Bilbao defender Andoni Iraola as his replacement.
O’Neil was initially placed in caretaker charge of the club in August following Scott Parker’s departure after a disastrous start to the 2022/23 season and was given the role full-time at the end of November in the wake of Foley’s takeover.
Despite being widely predicted for the drop throughout the campaign, under O’Neil they ensured their place in the Premier League with games to spare eventually finishing 15th. They won 11 and drew six of his 37 matches in charge at Vitality Stadium and O’Neil was widely hailed as one of the managers of the season.
“Gary's achievement last season is one I will always be grateful for,” Foley wrote, with the club also detailing how an announcement to name O’Neil’s successor will be made “imminently”. “This has been a difficult decision, but it has been made with great consideration to best position ourselves ahead of the coming season.
"As a club, we have put plans in place for long-term success with improvements being made to infrastructure, most notably the development of a new state-of-the-art training facility and the ongoing discussions around upgrades to our stadium.
"We have also identified a number of significant targets in the transfer market this summer and believe this change in direction will provide us with the best platform from which to build.
"Gary will go on to have a long career as a head coach or manager, but we feel that, at this moment in time, a change is in the best interests of this football club. I would like to place on record my thanks to Gary and wish him all the best for the future."
O’Neil made 36 appearances for City from 2016-2018 with his stop at Ashton Gate the penultimate in a 19-year professional career having previously played for Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, West Ham and Norwich City.
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