It was announced this week that Iraola would leave AFC Bournemouth at the end of the season when his contract runs out.
But the boss said they now have a “magnificent opportunity” to qualify for continental competition for the very first time in the club’s history.
Asked if that is his focus for the final games of his tenure in Dorset, and whether the timing of the announcement was done to minimise the impact on those chances, Iraola said: “100 per cent it is my priority.
Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola gestures on the touchline during the Premier League match at Stamford Bridge, London. (Image: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire)
“Everything we’ve done is to try to give us more chances to arrive there. We’ve decided this moment because we thought it was the best one because of the timing.
“Everything is looking how is going to affect less the normal season.
“But we have to choose one moment, I think it was worse to wait until the end of the season because it was going to be even more, more strange, the atmosphere. And we thought this was the right moment.”
Bournemouth were in with a shout of reaching Europe last term, too, but indifferent form at the end of the campaign meant they fell short, although they achieved a club-record points haul of 56 points.
Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola after the Premier League match at Old Trafford, Manchester. (Image: Martin Rickett/PA Wire)
“I think past season we had, I think, three points more maybe or something like this, but I think it was going to be and it finished being more expensive to get to Europe, more points than they are going to be needed this season,” he said.
“But this season probably you need less points but there are more teams involved in the fight.
“So someone, statistically someone will win a lot of games and we want to beat that team and we have to do something special.
“It’s not like if you get normal results I don’t think we are getting Europe. We need better than normal results if we want to get it.”
He’ll be looking to continue their momentum this weekend at Newcastle, with the Cherries heading to the north east on a run of 12 games unbeaten.
Junior Kroupi. (Image: Richard Crease)
Looking ahead to the game at St James’ Park, Iraola said: “After losing two games and also losing them for small details because it was the penalty in the stoppage time the other day against Palace.
“They were winning 1-0, Palace away, in the 80th minute. And they were controlling the game.
“Because they’ve lost, they’ve conceded two goals in stoppage time [vs Sunderland and Palace], now it looks like they are not in a good place.
“No, because imagine they scored for them the goals and they are on a run of I don’t know how many wins in a row, their performances would have been the same.
“So I think they are in a good place football-wise.
“They were coming from very good games before these two. And I think we have to be very good tomorrow, very, very good if we want to take one point, because it’s a very difficult opponent for me.”