BILL Foley has opened up on the club’s eye-catching decision to sack Gary O’Neil and replace him with Andoni Iraola.

The shock news of O’Neil’s departure was announced last week, with Spaniard Iraola installed as the club’s new boss just hours later.

Highly-rated Iraola, 41, became available when his contract at Rayo Vallecano expired at the end of the season, Cherries swooping to bring him in.

The wider media criticised the decision to part ways with O’Neil, who had just successfully kept Cherries in the Premier League.

Explaining the change, Foley told talkSPORT: “I’m a big fan of Gary O’Neil.

“It really wasn’t so much about Gary not doing what he was asked to do. It was more about a particular opportunity to give our football club a different identity.

“It came through the coach that we had made contact with some time ago and then reinitiated some discussions very recently.

“He was enthusiastic about coaching in the Premier League and we felt there was an opportunity we had to avail ourselves of.

“We had to make a difficult decision and we weren’t happy to do it, we just felt like it was something we had to do for the benefit of the team. The team comes first.

“That’s really the long and short of it. It wasn’t about Gary. It was about a different opportunity.”

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Put to him that many felt O’Neil deserved more loyalty after the job he had done, Foley replied: “We have a philosophy – team first, people a close second and ownership and management third, way down the list.

“We respect Gary. We respect his feelings and it was not an easy decision.

“We just felt that if we were going to be as successful as we believe we can be in this transfer market and we’re going to change the style of football we play, we needed to go a different direction.

“I’m not happy about it. I don’t feel good about having someone move on from a position within the club. But it was team first.

“It wasn’t just my decision, it was a decision made by the analytical staff and by football management in terms of the football club. We all separately, after thinking about it, we all came to the same conclusions. It really was a unanimous decision amongst us all. I think that’s the best way I can explain it.

“I don’t want to be viewed as one of these owners that comes in and fires and goes on and then fires them again. That’s not the plan.

“The plan is to go with this coach and to give him every opportunity to be successful. If it means at the end of year we’re relegated because we made a mistake, then I’ll live with it. That’s reality.

“But I believe we’re going to be successful with Andoni, I really do.”

Asked if he has been aware of Iraola for a long time, Foley explained: “The football staff has.

“I don’t know La Liga and I don’t know the coaches in La Liga, but our football staff have been aware of him, because we were looking for a coach last fall.

“We went with Gary, we felt that stability was the best thing for us to do at that point in time.

“He (Iraola) was one of the coaches that rose to the top in terms of people that we were thinking about.

“We didn’t make formal contact with him last fall, but the football side has kept in touch with him just over the last six months or so.

“His contract ran out, he was available and he was receiving multiple offers from very significant clubs.

“We felt like if we’re going to do something, this is the time to do it. Do it before the pre-season, have a new coach come in with his new systems, work with our players, give us a chance under his system to add players that we need in certain positions based upon his coaching style and his tactics. That was really the thought process.

“It was a three to five-day process that we went through to really make sure we were all on the same page and all thinking the same way.”