Andoni Iraola Brings Bournemouth Staff to Liverpool

Andoni Iraola did not walk into Liverpool blind. He walked in with a team.

The new Liverpool head coach has wasted no time transplanting the core of his Bournemouth backroom staff to Anfield, placing particular emphasis on a department that quietly undermined the club last season: set pieces.

Iraola’s inner circle arrives at Anfield

Since replacing Arne Slot last month, Iraola has brought familiar faces with him. Tommy Elphick, a boyhood Liverpool supporter, and Shaun Cooper have joined as first-team coaches. Pablo de la Torre, Iraola’s long-time ally from AEK Larnaca and Rayo Vallecano, has arrived as assistant coach, while Alejandro Rosalen takes over as first-team goalkeeping coach after five years at Napoli.

For Iraola, De la Torre is far more than a fitness specialist.

“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,” Iraola said, underlining the trust at the heart of his staff.

That continuity matters. This is his first season in charge at Anfield, his first Liverpool game coming on Saturday in a pre-season friendly against Sunderland in Nashville. He wants familiar voices around him as he steps into one of the most scrutinised jobs in European football.

Lessons from Bournemouth

Iraola’s appreciation for Elphick and Cooper was forged in unexpected circumstances on the south coast.

He arrived at Bournemouth intending to work again with his assistant Iñigo Pérez, only for Pérez to be denied a work permit. It could have left a sizeable hole in his operation. Instead, it opened the door to two coaches who would quickly become central to his plans.

“I was very lucky with Tommy and Shaun when I arrived at Bournemouth,” Iraola said. Pérez’s setback, he added, ultimately turned into a success story of its own: “After, it worked out very well for him because now he is coaching Villarreal. Maybe we play him in the Champions League.”

Once embedded at Bournemouth, Elphick and Cooper did enough to convince Iraola he did not need to replace Pérez.

“When I had Tommy and Shaun there, we did not feel the need to bring in another assistant,” he explained. “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.”

Elphick’s playing career – Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton, Huddersfield – gives him a direct line into the dressing room that Iraola values.

“Also the experience Tommy has at Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton, Huddersfield; they can be in a closer position to the players. They can feel more identified. I am a little bit older. Some of the players maybe didn’t know I was a player.”

At Liverpool, that bridge between coach and squad could be vital as the club adjusts to a new voice and a new style.

Fixing a title-winner’s blind spot

One clear mandate awaits Iraola and his staff: repair Liverpool’s vulnerability from dead balls.

In what proved Slot’s final season as head coach, Liverpool conceded 23 goals from set pieces in the league. Only Bournemouth (26), Crystal Palace (25) and Leeds (24) fared worse. It was an uncomfortable statistic for a team that still managed to win the title in Slot’s first year.

The numbers do not sit comfortably with Iraola. Nor with his staff, who now carry specific responsibilities in that area.

“They are very good coaches,” Iraola said of his backroom team. “We kind of understand the game similarly and they have different roles in the coaching staff, they help with set pieces also. That’s the reason I continued with them.”

The division of labour is clear. “Tommy does defensive set plays, Shaun does more offensive, more creative ones,” Iraola explained.

Elphick will be charged with tightening Liverpool’s organisation and resolve when defending corners and free-kicks. Cooper will look at how to turn those same situations into a weapon at the other end.

They will not be working in isolation. Iraola has also plugged into the expertise already inside the club.

“We are working very well here with the set-piece analyst [Lewis Mahoney], who was very good in the second half of last season. He is already with the club, so they are working on some stuff.”

Mahoney’s data-driven insight, blended with Elphick’s defensive eye and Cooper’s attacking imagination, gives Liverpool a clear structure around one of the game’s most decisive phases.

A new edge for a new era

Liverpool under Slot played front-foot, expansive football and still lifted the title. But the margin for error at the top is razor-thin. Twenty-three set-piece concessions is not a quirk; it is a fault line.

Iraola has chosen to confront it head-on, not by sweeping changes but by trusting a group who have already proved they can adapt, translate and connect across cultures and dressing rooms.

The first glimpse of that work comes in Nashville on Saturday. The real judgment will arrive when the season starts and the first corner swings into the Liverpool box.