INJURY CRISIS WON’T TEMPT IRAOLA BACK INTO ACTION

Bournemouth v Swansea

FA Cup Fourth Round, Tonight, 7.45pm

BY ALEX SMITH

ANDONI IRAOLA is not tempted to put his boots back on despite Bournemouth’s full-back crisis.

Manager Iraola (above) spent the vast majority of his career at Athletic Bilbao and New York City playing at right-back and was capped by Spain seven times playing there.

And with Adam Smith (below top), Ryan Fredericks, Max Aarons (below middle) injured and Milos Kerkez (below bottom) a doubt for tonight’s FA

Cup clash with Swansea,

Iraola could have solved his own problem.

But Iraola, 41, said:

“There is no chance. My time passed a long time ago. I am not ready now to perform for even five minutes.

“I would have to lose a lot of weight and need a lot of time to prepare because the demands of the competition is really high now.

“Sometimes we use (assistant managers and former defenders) Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper in training when we need to make up the numbers or need them for a specific drill, but I don’t think Tommy, Shaun or me are ready for that kind of challenge.”

Asked whether the Cherries could dip into the transfer market to fill the problematic area, Iraola said: “We have to think.

We have the numbers there, but they are not available.

“We have been like this for over a month. It has been different injuries.

First we didn’t have a proper left-back for a month and now we don’t have a specific right-back.

“It is one for the medical staff but there are always transfer lists for whenever something happens and we have to make decisions on what is the most needed players.”

Antoine Semenyo was flying back from the Ivory Coast overnight after his Ghana side were knocked out of AFCON early.

And the forward could be involved tonight. Iraola added:

“It is going to be difficult for him physically and mentally, but I will try and talk to him and maybe he can be on the bench.”