It is not official yet, but it will be fairly soon: Arne Slot will be the man to take over from Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool in the summer. Klopp isn’t the only one leaving, though, and therefore isn’t the only one who will need to be replaced.
Pep Lijnders, Vitor Matos and other Liverpool coaches will also be departing with Klopp at the same time. Lijnders is expected to move into a management role where Matos would become his assistant. But the fact that they are leaving with Klopp means they will need to be succeeded as well.
Sipke Hulshoff is Slot’s trusted assistant and he is someone who would be expected to join him at Anfield, alongside the likes of Etiënne Reijnen (another coach) and head of performance Ruben Peeters. But there might be an issue.
According to Mikos Gouka of Algemeen Dagblad, Hulshoff faces a ‘complicated decision’. That is because as well as being involved with Feyenoord, he is also an assistant to Ronald Koeman with the Dutch national team.
Liverpool would supposedly like Hulshoff to arrive on day one with Slot, but his involvement in the summer’s European Championship could make that more tricky. The reporter writes that Hulshoff has been told to ‘solve that problem himself’ though it is not explained by who, and whether that might mean stepping down from his work with the Netherlands.
If he were to leave the Dutch role, that would give him more time to get used to working at Liverpool before next season. If he went to Germany for the international tournament first, he would arrive back for pre-season after many of the players.
Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch already work with Hulshoff at national team level. And Van Dijk has previously explained why he is a big fan of the coach.
“I didn’t know Sipke before this,” he told vi.nl last year. “You have to get to know each other. You see what his qualities are and I personally certainly like that. Hopefully he can continue that well. He is very clear and tactically strong. I like the moments when he leads a training session. I think I also speak for the group.”
Liverpool.com says: Whoever Slot wants to bring with him, you would like to think that these kinds of things can be worked out. Hulshoff is clearly highly thought of and he would come in knowing a few players, which would be no bad thing.
