Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola made clear he wants to retain Antoine Semenyo despite intense interest from several top clubs as the January window approaches. Iraola acknowledged the reality that the winger might only remain on the south coast for a short period but insisted the club will benefit from every game he plays.<\/p>\n
Tottenham Hotspur were rebuffed in the first approach and Chelsea\u2019s interest cooled after reports suggested Semenyo had his mind made up, with Manchester City widely described as his \u201cpreferred\u201d destination. Liverpool remain linked and Manchester United\u2019s pursuit has not been ruled out.<\/p>\n
The January window opens on Thursday (New Year\u2019s Day fittingly enough) and The Athletic report that the terms of Semenyo\u2019s release clause require a bid within the first 10 days of the year so Bournemouth can secure a replacement.<\/p>\n
When asked whether he would cash in immediately, Iraola replied: \u201cNo,\u201d was his immediate response.<\/p>\n
He underlined the club\u2019s position on keeping the forward: \u201cThe more games Antoine can play for us, [the better],\u201d Iraola argued. \u201cIf he can play years for us, it\u2019s much better! If it cannot be years, it can be months. If he can only play weeks, it is weeks but the more time he plays with us, the better for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Semenyo scored Bournemouth\u2019s only goal in Saturday\u2019s 4\u20131 defeat to Brentford, taking his personal tally to nine for the season. With three assists, he has been directly involved in 44% of Bournemouth\u2019s Premier League goals this season, a proportion only Erling Haaland can top.<\/p>\n
\u201cAntoine\u2019s situation is quite clear,\u201d Iraola sighed. \u201cAntoine is a massive player for us and even in games like today where probably he hasn\u2019t played well, he is always a threat to score and assist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I don\u2019t want to lose him,\u201d Iraola added from the bowels of Brentford\u2019s Gtech Community Stadium. \u201cThis is quite clear, but there are some situations that are not under my control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iraola was confident Semenyo would be available for the upcoming fixtures: \u201cHe will be available to play again in three days [against Chelsea] and then the next one and I hope he plays a lot more with us,\u201d Iraola insisted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraola insists he wants to keep Semenyo as interest from top clubs intensifies ahead of January soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,969,1163],"tags":[983,801],"class_list":["post-5448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-premier-league","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-antoine-semenyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}