Liverpool Confirm Three Coaching Departures
Liverpool have confirmed that Sipke Hulshoff, Ruben Peeters, and Giovanni van Bronckhorst have all left their coaching roles at Anfield.
When a manager gets the sack it’s only a matter of time before his lieutenants follow him out the door, so the news will come as no surprise to most. With Andoni Iraola in the hot seat ahead of the new campaign, clearing the decks gives the Spaniard a clean slate to bring in his own trusted backroom team before pre-season kicks into gear.
Hulshoff and Peeters came through the doors alongside Slot in the summer of 2024. While you can’t argue with what that setup achieved in their debut campaign, wrapping up number 20 at Anfield with four games to spare, things unravelled quickly in their second year and the standards simply weren’t up to scratch.
The drop-off was stark, and a lot of the scrutiny has understandably fallen on Peeters. Known for its relentless energy under Jürgen Klopp, the squad started to look more and more leggy as the 25/26 campaign went on. There were rumours following Slot’s sacking that the Anfield hierarchy were unhappy with the lack of intensity in training, and there is no denying that these concerns showed on the pitch. With the exception of perhaps Dominik Szoboszlai, Liverpool’s players looked physically off the pace when it mattered most, and the number of late goals conceded during the campaign suggests that players lacked the energy levels to see games out.
Van Bronckhorst was a more recent addition, joining the Reds ahead of the recently-finished campaign as a replacement for John Heitinga – who departed the club last summer to take up the head coach position at Ajax.
The clearout frees up space for Iraola’s preferred team to join the club, with it believed that Tommy Elphick, Shaun Cooper, and Pablo de la Torre will join the Spaniard in making the switch from the south coast. It’s also understood that the new head coach is keen on bringing a former Red into his team, with James Milner and Thiago Alcântara the two names regularly mentioned.
