ANDONI Iraola has expressed immense pride after his AFC Bournemouth side’s impressive 4-1 victory over Newcastle, achieved despite a difficult injury crisis.
The Cherries took an early lead through Justin Kluivert, but Newcastle captain Bruno Guimaraes equalized soon after. However, Kluivert found the net again just before half-time to restore Bournemouth’s lead, before completing a remarkable hat-trick in stoppage time. Milos Kerkez also added a goal, consolidating the result.
In his post-match remarks, Iraola shared his feelings: “My first feeling is great pride for my players. Today’s performance was very, very good. I think we fully deserved to win today we were very complete during every minute of the match.
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“I had a slight doubt in the last minutes because you never know how it will end in a high-level match like this. But we finished very strong as well and I think it was a very complete match .”
Bournemouth’s players showed fantastic energy throughout the match at St James’ Park, executing Iraola’s pressing strategy and displaying an impressive determination to chase down every loose ball.
When asked about the collective effort, Iraola said: “I think we needed that from every player who started. The substitutes, especially Jebbo, who came on at the end , played their part and more, winning duels against players playing at a high level at the moment.
“We have had some very good games against Newcastle over the last few seasons, and we discussed at half-time the need to secure the victory by adding one or two more goals. If it was 2-1, we “I’ve been in this situation before and it often happens that something stops us from winning the game. So we needed to maintain our offensive threat, and I think we did that.”
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Although Kluivert stole the show with his hat-trick, Iraola was quick to praise his entire squad for their outstanding contributions in the North East. He commented on Kluivert’s performance saying: “With Justin and with everyone. It’s true that Justin scored three goals, three very good goals. But his defensive commitment against Tonali and his efforts in pressing were incredibly valuable for us Of course, adding goals makes it all a lot sweeter.
“But I can’t just name one or two players; everyone was very, very good.”
The remarkable victory extends Bournemouth’s record unbeaten run in the Premier League to ten games, propelling them to sixth place in the table, just one point behind fourth-placed Newcastle.
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