Steele: Meet Liverpool’s New Coaching Team As Reds Target The Top

Steele: Meet Liverpool’s New Coaching Team As Reds Target The Top Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool Coaching Team: Tommy Elphick, Set-Pieces and the Fitness Reset at Anfield Liverpool’s new era under Andoni Iraola will be judged in time by results, by the shape of the team, by whether Anfield feels once more like a place of momentum rather than uncertainty. Yet the first clues often come from somewhere quieter, from the figures who stand just outside the main glare. As Iraola prepares for his first match in charge, the composition of his backroom staff offers a revealing sketch of how he intends to work, what he values, and where Liverpool’s immediate problems may be addressed. According to Lewis Steele of The Daily Mail , Iraola has arrived at Anfield with a compact but carefully trusted group, a coaching staff built on familiarity, delegated authority and tactical specificity. For a club looking to recover rhythm and purpose after a difficult campaign, those details matter. Liverpool do not only need a new head coach, they need a renewed structure around the head coach. Tommy Elphick and the art of delegated leadership If there is one appointment that hints most clearly at Iraola’s method, it may be Tommy Elphick. The report notes that Iraola “likes to manage from a distance” and that Elphick and Shaun Cooper have had responsibility for running sessions and deepening relationships with players. That distinction is significant. Elite coaching now often rests less on one omnipresent authority figure than on a carefully distributed network of voices, each carrying the central idea into different corners of the training ground. Elphick appears to be central to that arrangement. A former defender with leadership credentials forged under Eddie Howe, he brings credibility of the practical kind. He has lived the game from the dressing room floor rather than from theory alone, and his own playing career, cut short after repeated operations, seems to have sharpened his sense of clarity and empathy. One quote from his past captures the directness of his instinct. “We went in, took the handbrake off and went for it,” he said in 2023. That phrase fits neatly with the football Iraola has tended to favour, intense, urgent, often brave to the point of discomfort. Yet Elphick’s value may lie as much in emotional translation as tactical implementation. Steele reports that when Bournemouth made a poor start under Iraola, the coaches remained calm. In a volatile game, calm is not passivity. It is often the discipline required to stop a process being abandoned before it has had time to take root. Iraola himself was explicit about his reliance on Elphick and Cooper. “I was very lucky with Tommy and Shaun when I arrived at Bournemouth,” he said. “They were very prepared, they were very helpful for me in terms of understanding the English culture, the mentality of the players, what they were used to, what they like in training, even the small details that maybe in Spain are different.” Set-piece problems and Shaun Cooper’s immediate challenge There are few more glaring statistical faults to fix at Liverpool than set-pieces. Steele highlights that Liverpool conceded 23 goals from them last season, a total that places the issue far beyond minor inconvenience. Set-pieces tend to expose collective concentration, organisational detail and physical commitment. When they go wrong repeatedly, they imply a structural weakness. Shaun Cooper is expected to take charge of offensive, creative set plays, while Elphick handles defensive routines. That split looks sensible. Specialist coaching can sometimes sound fashionable, but at the top level it is now closer to necessity. Margins are thinner, and dead-ball situations can shape seasons. Photo: IMAGO Cooper’s profile suggests invention. Bournemouth midfielder Ryan Christie said, “Shaun is coming up with loads of different set-pieces, he has new ones for us to try each game.” Variety, though, must now be married with reliability. Liverpool’s challenge is not only to become cleverer from attacking restarts, but sturdier from defensive ones. That duality matters because a side that presses hard and plays with emotional force, as Iraola’s teams tend to do, can often end matches on a physical edge. Set-pieces then become moments where discipline must survive fatigue. There is a mild irony in Cooper arriving from Bournemouth, a side that also had problems at the defensive end from set-pieces. Yet coaching appointments are rarely as simple as importing a solved problem from one club to another. More often, they are about identifying the right specialist to refine process and improve execution. Liverpool would surely settle for rapid progress rather than theoretical perfection. Pablo de la Torre and the fitness demands of four fronts If Cooper’s remit looks immediately tactical, Pablo de la Torre’s may be the most consequential over the length of the season. Liverpool’s injury burden last term was too heavy, too disruptive and too often central to the collapse of continuity. Iraola enters a season of domestic and European demands, a calendar that tests not only squad depth but the sophistication of physical preparation. De la Torre is presented as much more than a conditioning coach. Iraola explained, “Pablo is a physical coach but has been with me almost all the years I have been coaching. So for me, he is much more than a physical coach, really. He is an assistant and we know each other very well.” That sounds less like a peripheral sports science hire and more like a keeper of the manager’s footballing language. Reports have described him as a “fiery character”, which may prove useful in a season where intensity must be controlled rather than merely encouraged. The challenge for Liverpool is not simply to run hard, but to run in a way that preserves freshness into spring. Iraola’s football can be demanding. At a club of Liverpool’s scale, with the expectation of competing on four fronts, the distinction between intensity and overload will define much. De la Torre’s own words are revealing. “The key is building a game model and team identity where players truly believe in the coach’s idea. Beyond results, I’m proud to have been part of a group that never stopped believing, competing, and improving.” He also said, “Andoni is incredibly intelligent, leads by example, and has a rare emotional stability in such a visceral sport. From day one, you sense he’s different, his ability to read the game and its needs is almost unique.” Those are admiring words, naturally, but they also hint at Liverpool’s hope. Identity has to be physical as well as tactical. If the team are to press, recover, sprint and sustain pressure, belief in the method must be supported by bodies capable of carrying it out. Goalkeeping, pathways and a more connected staff structure Elsewhere, Liverpool’s reshaped staff reveals a club trying to create coherence. Alejandro Rosalen arrives after title-winning work at Napoli, replacing Xavi Valero. Goalkeeping coaching can often pass under the radar until a goalkeeper’s form wavers, but a side in tactical transition needs certainty behind the defensive line. If Iraola asks Liverpool to compress space and defend proactively, the goalkeeper’s role in positioning, distribution and command becomes even more decisive. Luiz Fernando Iubel’s role appears similarly practical, though perhaps less visible. By operating across loans, Under 21s and Under 18s, he functions as connective tissue between departments that can otherwise become isolated. Pre-season often exposes the need for that. Young players train up, senior absences create opportunities, and a club’s pathway either looks coherent or cosmetic. A joined-up structure allows talent to move with some purpose rather than by improvisation. Then there is Tom Webber, the new first-team tactical analyst. Steele notes his academic work on the relative age effect in football, evidence of a broader curiosity about development and competitive advantage. Analysis departments are now part of football’s architecture, shaping opposition plans, training detail and internal review. At Liverpool, where the challenge is to restore sharpness quickly, that function is likely to be important in translating Iraola’s ideas into repeatable habits. All of this points towards a staff chosen not for celebrity, but for fit. Iraola appears to value trust, functional expertise and a chain of communication in which each coach carries a clear area of influence. He sits, we are told, between Elphick and Cooper on matchdays so there can be “a constant dialogue”. That image feels apt. This may be a Liverpool side coached through conversation as much as command. Our View From a Liverpool supporter’s perspective, this report is intriguing because it feels practical. There is no sense of theatre here, no grand unveiling of celebrity assistants for the sake of headlines. Instead, it sounds like Iraola has come in with people he trusts to do specific jobs, and that is exactly what Liverpool need after a season where too many basics slipped. The set-piece angle jumps off the page. Conceding 23 goals from those situations is unacceptable for a side with top-level ambitions, so having defined responsibility split between Shaun Cooper and Tommy Elphick sounds encouraging. Fans will not care where the solutions come from if they start working quickly. Elphick is perhaps the most interesting figure. A Liverpool fan, a former captain, and someone clearly valued for leadership and communication, he feels like the type of coach players listen to. The line about Iraola managing “from a distance” also stands out. If that means the message is clearer and more consistent through his assistants, then it could be a real strength. The biggest hope, though, is Pablo de la Torre. Liverpool have had too many injury problems and too many stretches where intensity dropped off. If he can help keep the squad physically robust across the campaign, his influence could be enormous. Overall, this feels like a backroom staff built with purpose, and after the last year, purpose is exactly what supporters want to see.