Sipke Hulshoff (right) first started working with Arne Slot in 2015
Sipke Hulshoff (right) first started working with Arne Slot in 2015
Arne Slot will be forced to watch Liverpool's Carabao Cup quarter-final tie with Southampton from the stands after picking up his first ever suspension, but he'll be confident that he'll have left his team in safe hands.
The Reds boss picked up his third booking of the season in Saturday's 2-2 draw with Fulham at Anfield, triggering a suspension for the trip to a Saints side who will be overseen by interim boss Simon Rusk after Sunday's sacking of Russell Martin.
So while the dugouts will have an unfamiliar look to them, Slot will have full trust in his assistant manager Sipke Hulshoff as he watches on from afar.
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Who is Sipke Hulshoff?
Slot's fellow Dutchman will turn 50 next month, and followed the Reds boss to Merseyside this summer having first started a working relationship in 2015.
The pair were on the staff together at Dutch club SC Cambuur Leeuwarden, where Slot took his first head coach role in 2016. Unlike Slot, Hulshoff did not have a playing career, and instead rose through the Cambuur coaching ranks having started out with the youth teams in 1999.
Hulshoff (centre) with Slot at Feyenoord
Hulshoff (centre) with Slot at Feyenoord ( Image: Getty Images)
He would eventually return to Cambuur with Slot following a nomadic spell of coaching at several Dutch clubs as well as spells with Red Bull Ghana, where he was head coach, and Al-Arabi in Qatar.
After meeting Slot at Cambuur he went on to an assistant role at Volendam and then took over Feyenoord's under-21s in 2021, before moving to the senior set-up with Slot a year later. He also accepted a role alongside Ronald Koeman with the Dutch national side in 2023, working with him at Euro 2024 before leaving for Liverpool.
Hulshoff will be Liverpool's main man in the dugout on Wednesday, when he will be assisted by John Heitinga, the former Everton and Fulham defender who joined the Reds this summer after a spell coaching at West Ham.
Slot said on Tuesday: “Sipke I worked with for a long time. We know each other in and out, especially football-wise. One of the reasons why we work together (is) because we have so much in common if it's about the playing style, game model or the changes we make during the game.
Hulshoff (right) on a Christmas visit to Alder Hey hospital with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Conor Bradley, Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota
"And John Heitinga is now here with me for the first half (of the) season and I couldn't have wished for more. If I say talented, I don't even rate him high enough because he's more than that already.
"He's been a head coach himself but he's still young. He grew into our staff from the start in a very good manner, so has the same idea about football. That's also why I chose him to come to us as well. But the way he is with the boys, just like Sipke is, very positive.
"We do almost all the things we do together – like in every other staff it's like this but that's definitely the way it is over here as well. They get a lot of time to work with the players individually but also lead part of the session.
"They have the same idea about football as I do. So yes, I will be involved tomorrow. But if I wouldn't be, that would not be a problem at all for the players. They wouldn't notice anything different."
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