Liverpool F.C. Head coach Andoni Iraola has outlined how three trusted assistants from his Bournemouth backroom team will help cure the club’s set-piece ills next season.
Iraola has brought Tommy Elphick, Shaun Cooper and Pablo de la Torre from Bournemouth to Anfield since taking over from Arne Slot last month. Elphick and Cooper join as first-team coaches, while de la Torre arrives as assistant coach. Alejandro Rosalen has also arrived as first-team goalkeeping coach after five years at Napoli.
Elphick is a lifelong Liverpool fan and Cooper is a set-piece specialist. De la Torre has worked alongside Iraola since their first coaching job at AEK Larnaca in 2016, then again at Rayo Vallecano. “Pablo is more than a physical coach,” Iraola said. “He’s an assistant and we know each other very well.”
The trio will split set-piece duties: Elphick handles defensive plays, Cooper focuses on offensive and creative routines. They’ll work with analyst Lewis Mahoney, who joined in January and helped improve Liverpool’s set-piece record in the second half of last season.
Only Bournemouth (26), Crystal Palace (25) and Leeds (24) conceded more set-piece goals than Liverpool’s 23 in 2025-26. That ranked as the club’s worst mark under Slot, who won the title in his debut campaign.
Iraola’s first competitive game in charge comes on Saturday against Sunderland in a pre-season friendly in Nashville. The Reds sit fifth in the Premier League final table from 2025 with 60 points from 38 games and a recent run of draw-loss-draw-loss-win. They finished 25 points behind Arsenal and scored 63 goals while conceding 53, leaving a +10 goal difference.
