Liverpool's title-winning set-piece coach was dismissed two days before the turn of the year, with the club having conceded a joint-high 12 set-piece goals in the Premier League while scoring only three – comfortably the division's worst return in that department.
It marked a dramatic reversal from his first season, when Liverpool did not concede a single set-piece goal until the second half of the campaign en route to the title.
"I had experience of being in the spotlight at Wolfsburg and Monaco as an assistant coach, but the thing with set pieces is that it's very, very measurable. It's black and white," Briggs told [_The Athletic_](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7488630/2026/08/05/aaron-briggs-liverpool-set-piece-coach-arne-slot-interview/).
Briggs, who took on the role full-time after Liverpool's title win, said the club rallied round as results worsened.
> "That summer, I took on the role full-time and thought I could make a difference. I put my heart and soul into it, as many hours as humanely possible," he said. "The club tried to help so it wasn't just me on my own.
"The analyst team were really helpful. We had meetings and spoke with the players, the coaches. I was doing more research, looking at all the chances we conceded and how they happened."
Virgil van Dijk was among the players he leaned on most heavily, with the defender growing visibly frustrated as the goals piled up.
Briggs pointed to a lack of clarity over what was going wrong, noting most of the goals conceded came not from the first contact at delivery but from the "second and third balls" that followed – a pattern Arne Slot also put down partly to misfortune when set against the numbers.
A contentious offside call at the Etihad Stadium in November, when Andy Robertson was ruled to have interfered with play after Van Dijk appeared to equalise against Manchester City from a corner, still nags at him.
"That was a low point. It was a very grey offside and you think to yourself, 'If it goes the other way maybe that would have changed our season, maybe the corners would have snowballed'. But the margins are so small at this level."
Despite the numbers, Briggs insisted there was no fallout with Slot.
"There wasn't a falling-out. Arne was really supportive and I spoke to him a few weeks ago. It was very amicable. The numbers were the numbers unfortunately and that's part of football," he said, adding that he still treasures winning the title and being part of Liverpool's open-top bus parade.
"I wish from the bottom of my heart it had gone better in that second year, but everyone was trying so I didn't feel alone."