ANDONI Iraola warned Cherries must “improve a lot” just to repeat their achievements of last season.

In Iraola’s first campaign at the club, Cherries ended 12th in the Premier League with 48 points, the most they have managed in the top flight.

Expectations are now rising, with many fans hoping for a push towards European qualification.

But head coach Iraola insists the club could slip down the standings if they do not perform even better than they did last year.

“I think we will need to improve a lot because I think every team is improving,” he said.

“You see the signings of other teams every day. Everyone is going to be much stronger.

“If we are the same team as the past season, we will finish lower for sure.

“If we don’t improve and are not better, we will not go in the same improvement to the level of the competition.

“I feel like even if you are good, sometimes it is not going to be enough. The opposition, and I am not even just talking about the top 10 teams, the others are doing really good signings.

“We have to be ready because the overall level of the Premier League, for me, has risen a lot. It is rising every season. So we need to improve.”

He added: “I don’t think we should compare to last season. I feel that we need to improve what we did performance-wise, even to keep the same level, because the level of the competition has risen.

“This is our focus, to compete well and improve the team, because we see others around us are improving.

“They will be tougher to beat this season and we have to be at least the same as the others in this performance level.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s opener at Nottingham Forest (3pm), Iraola said: “Excited, nervous. As all the teams, we’ve tried to prepare as good as we could during pre-season, but until the real competition starts, you do not know where you are.

“I think we arrived quite well and hope we can perform well during the first game.

“We are not favourites in the first five games of the season. I checked the bets so I could tell you!

“We know we have to play very well to win these games.

“Sometimes to be normal is not going to be enough. We have to play really good games and we will start with this mentality.”