Arne Slot has spoken out about his staff as former boss Jurgen Klopp has been given the last laugh
Liverpool will look to make it three wins on the spin when they take on Nottingham Forest on Sunday. The Reds have been dogged by inconsistency this season and head coach Arne Slot knows they can’t afford to drop many more points in the race for the Champions League spots.
Despite their poor run of form at the end of 2025, Liverpool have only been beaten twice in the Premier League this calendar year. Bournemouth saw off the Reds in late January while Manchester City inflicted a rare home defeat on Slot’s side earlier this month.
The club’s uptick in fortunes can be perhaps traced back to the departure of set piece coach Aaron Briggs, with the Reds looking stronger from dead ball positions since he departed. However, in today’s news, Slot has slammed any criticism of his former coach.
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Elsewhere, ex-Reds boss Jurgen Klopp looks to have been proved right after a former Liverpool star forced a premature exit from his boyhood club.
Arne Slot defends coach
Slot has defended former Liverpool set-piece coach Briggs. Liverpool parted ways with Briggs on December 30 after the club conceded 13 goals from set-pieces in 26 games. In that time they only scored eight from dead ball situations.
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Liverpool have conceded just two set-piece goals and scored eight in the 12 games since Briggs left. Slot was asked on Thursday to explain the team’s approach to set pieces but claimed it was out of line to place the blame entirely on Briggs.
“I’m happy that you asked that question because it would be very unfair to Aaron, who was only partly responsible for that, because in the end I’m responsible for everything,” he said.
“In the end it’s always my responsibility. But we were, in that period of time, so, so, so unlucky. We all knew that it couldn’t go on like that, because we hardly gave away a chance in set-pieces but every goal went in, and we created multiple opportunities to score and the ball didn’t go in.
“So that things go back to normal now is something which we expected. Aaron had an analyst and the two of them were mainly responsible for it – in the end I’m responsible, but they did the work. That hasn’t changed.
“So Lewis [Mahoney, first-team set-piece analyst] does the main work and then we have a meeting together and we look at the last details. But in general we didn’t change that much, we maybe made one or two slight changes but we didn’t change much.
“What changed is things went back to normal, because in the Champions League, when Aaron was with us, we were already very good – I think we were No. 1 in set-pieces. I would mainly say things went back to normal and we’ve adjusted one or two small things.”
Jurgen Klopp proven right
Former Liverpool star Philippe Coutinho has cemented an exit from yet another club. The Brazilian was famously warned he would regret departing Liverpool as he fought to gain a move to Barcelona during the 2017/18 season.
Coutinho has now told Vasco da Gama, the club where he played as a youngster, that he wishes to terminate his contract. Reports from Brazil have suggested that the news stunned Vasco, with the club even initiating discussions with the 33-year-old about a new contract.
Coutinho’s existing deal was set to run out in June. His decision has seemed to stem from criticism he has faced from fans after being booed during a recent home game.
This marks another failed episode in a career that has underwhelmed since Klopp warned him just before his departure for Barcelona in early 2018. The German had said: “Stay here [Liverpool] and they will end up building a statue in your honour. Go somewhere else, to Barcelona, to Bayern Munich, to Real Madrid, and you will be just another player. Here you can be something more.”
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The midfielder’s time at the Camp Nou featured a loan stint at Bayern Munich and ended in 2022. An effort to revive his career at Aston Villa under Steven Gerrard began promisingly but ultimately stalled.
There were also spells at Al-Duhail in Qatar and Vasco before he completed a permanent move from Villa to the latter last year.
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