Lewis Cook publicly apologises for red card amid speculation on Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola

Lewis Cook publicly apologises for the red card against Wolves, amid reported speculation on the future of Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola.

Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Gary O’Neil returned back to haunt his former club as Matheus Cunha and Sasa Kalajdzic scored in the second half to cancel out Dominic Solanke’s goal giving the Cherries an early lead.

Lewis Cook also got sent off for a headbutt on Hee-Chan Hwang after the break, reacting to Hwang who made most of being fouled, falling to ground that stormed towards Cook, who has come out to say sorry to his fellow teammates, staff and fans.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, Cook said: “Just a massive apology really to the players especially, the fans and the club.

“I don’t normally associate myself with something like that.

“In the heat of the moment I just made a terrible, terrible decision.

“I’m gutted, but more gutted for everyone else really. It’s a big mistake from myself and I take full responsibility on the result.

“It’s down to me and something I’ve got to definitely learn from.

“Even if someone pushes me like that, there’s no excuse for me to do how it looked like on the video.

“I’ve played football long enough now to know I shouldn’t have even put myself in that situation.

“I don’t even know why I did. All I can say is I’m really, really sorry.

“I need to learn from it and I’ve definitely let everyone down.

“It was a strange situation. I wasn’t exactly angry. He can push me, I just made a terrible decision.

“It was a heat of the moment, red mist kind of thing. You don’t really realise what happens. It was a stupid, stupid mistake from myself.

“I’ve never really done anything like that before.

“I can be quite an aggressive player, but I never really want to do something like that.

“I’m quite embarrassed for myself, to be honest.

“I’ve got to just make sure I own my mistake, keep trying to help the lads in any way I can.

“I’ve got to try and work hard now and put it right.

“The result is my fault. It’s no-one else’s fault.

“The lads worked tirelessly. I know we needed the win. I’m just truly sorry, to be honest.

“I just thought I’d come out here, hold my hands up and make sure everyone knows it was me and not the team.”

The Daily Mail reported on Monday (23rd October) claiming Iraola was ‘set for the sack’, only to then claim within their own article that their sources said he isn’t.

Alex Crook tweeted in light of the Daily Mail report, saying: “Reliably informed Andoni Iraola will be in the #AFCB dugout against Burnley on Saturday. Retains the support of the hierarchy.”

The Daily Mail have since deleted their tweet. Looking rather foolish now.

Bournemouth: Neto (5), Aarons (6), Zabarnyi (6), Kelly (6), Kerkez (6), Scott (6), Cook (4), Tavernier (6), Billing (6), Brooks (7), Solanke (7).

Subs: Rothwell (6), Christie (6), Ouattara (6), Senesi (n/a), Moore (n/a).

Wolves: Sa (6), Kilman (7), Dawson (8), Toti (6), Doherty (7), Gomes (6), Traore (6), Ait-Nouri (6), Neto (8), Cunha (7), Hwang (7).

Subs: Doyle (7), Sarabia (6), Kalajdzic (7).

Player of the match: Pedro Neto.

Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola said: “We mostly played like we wanted it, but there are mistakes at this level that you cannot commit and we did.

“We were attacking very well and were doing well, but after Lewis Cook’s sending off everything gets much more difficult.

“Even with 10 players, we gave everything. We defended well then at the end we made a second mistake.”

He added: “Lewis and Neto know they made the mistakes. We are not keeping the focus to compete and win games. I’ve not seen the red card repeated, but he was the first one to apologise. He left us in a difficult situation, but we were close to taking at least one point. We conceded in the worst way.”

Andoni’s reaction to #BOUWOL 💬 pic.twitter.com/DMf9Ld6ozy

— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) October 21, 2023

Wolves head coach Gary O’Neil said: “It’s not about me or returning to Bournemouth. Just a really good win for a group that is making progress and working extremely hard.

“Honestly, I feel no different than when we beat Manchester City and Everton. It feels exactly the same. I have huge respect for everybody at Bournemouth. They gave me an opportunity to manage a Premier League football team, thankfully I managed to go six unbeaten which got me on a decent run.

“There’s nothing in it for me. Funny experience, coming back and being sat at this desk again. I just enjoyed our performance, nothing else.”

He added: “It was a really big win for us, to win on the road for the second time this year. The fixtures have been very tough for us, I think we’ve had the toughest run of fixtures. I saw an article the other day ranking the fixtures and we were right up there.

“To have got 11 points so far is really good and to win away from, against a good side that will cause teams problems, is really good.”