ANDONI Iraola said he was to blame for needing to substitute Julian Araujo in the first half against Aston Villa, adding it was the first time he had ever made a change in the first period.

Araujo was taken off by Iraola on the half an hour mark, after the right back had had some trouble handling Villa’s Jacob Ramsey on the left wing.

He was replaced by Adam Smith, but Iraola said he must assume responsibility for needing to make the change, rather than how Araujo had played.

The Basque boss said his side were on the back foot in the opening exchanges at Villa Park but he made some tactical tweaks, including the change, and they came back into the contest.

“That is the first time I do in my career, one sub in the first half,” Iraola said.

“But I have to assume the responsibility because I put Julian probably in the most difficult game for a right back that you can find in the Premier League.

“The way Villa plays on their left side that they use the space there very well with different players.

(Image: Jacob King/PA Wire) “With the yellow card [for Araujo], I felt like I had to do it, but I blame more myself than Julian.”

On what his message to Smith was coming off the bench, Iraola said: “To identify better when to leave the space and not go too easy to the man to man, because otherwise they exploit the space very well.

“If it's not with [Lucas] Digne, with Ollie Watkins. So sometimes you have to keep the space.

“You cannot always keep the space because otherwise Ramsey’s going to hurt you.

“They always play like this and it costs to every team to defend because they play, they do it very well.

“Obviously, they've done it hundreds of times in training and Unai was doing this even in his previous team.

“So, everyone knows what they are going to do, but it's very difficult to defend because the timing and the way they also turn the players in the middle.

“I think we needed to be better in the decision making, when to follow, when to protect the space in behind, protect more our centre backs.

“I think Adam, probably because he has suffered it before in the previous games against them, has used this experience that probably Julian will have in the next games, but not today.”

The Cherries went on to snatch a late Evanilson equaliser to draw 1-1 at Villa Park, after Villa had opened the scoring on 76 minutes through Ross Barkley.