Despite ending the year 2023 with a Premier League defeat at Tottenham, Bournemouth’s manager Andoni Iraola has stated that he’s happy with the performance of his boys in North London.

The Cherries lost their last game of 2023 in a 3-1 defeat to Tottenham, which brought an end to their seven-game unbeaten run in all competitions. Within that run, Bournemouth won six games and drew just one.

However, Sunday’s fixture saw Tottenham, who lost 4-2 to Brighton days back, start strong with a ninth-minute goal from Pape Matar Sarr, and two second-half goals from Son Heung-Min and Richarlison earned the win for Ange Postecoglu’s side.

A late goal from Alex Scott was merely a consolation, and another late goal to make it 3-2 was disallowed by the VAR, but Andoni Iraola chose to focus on the positives only.

“Quite happy with the performance, difficult to come here and have so many chances and to push them. They finished better than us, and that’s it. First 60 minutes I think we were very good. We made the mistake in the first goal and had a lot of chances to tie the game and they punished us at the end. It’s a matter of hitting the crossbar and blocks, and in the first half, they blocked some of ours really well. We had a lot of opportunities and we’ve won games playing worse than today but they were better, especially finishing today.” Iraola said.

Bournemouth finished 2023 just 3 points away from the top 10 as they sit in 12th position with 25 points. Their next game will be on the sixth of January against QPR in the FA Cup 3rd round.

Tottenham are now one point behind Manchester City and Arsenal in the top four places. Spurs sit fifth with 39 points and will face Burnley next Friday in the FA Cup.

Daniel Ademiju Idowu