Tommy Elphick has quickly made an impression since joining Liverpool’s backroom staff. For the former Bournemouth defender, there is an added significance to the role. The boyhood Red now works every week on the training pitches at the club he grew up supporting.
The Tommy Elphick Liverpool coach appointment arrived once Andoni Iraola was confirmed as head coach. Elphick joined alongside fellow coaches Shaun Cooper, Pablo de la Torre and Tom Webber, forming the backroom team Iraola brought with him to Merseyside.
Elphick’s affection for the club goes back to childhood, long before Iraola gave him a route into the Premier League as a coach rather than a player. That personal link has not gone unnoticed inside Anfield, where the new staff have already overseen the kind of individual progress detailed in our earlier report on Lewis Koumas breaking into first team contention.
Turning down management for Iraola’s Liverpool project
The move to Merseyside came with a genuine sacrifice for Elphick. Before joining Liverpool, he turned down the chance to become head coach at Championship club Bristol City. Instead, he chose to continue working under Iraola rather than take the step into management himself.
Steve Fletcher is a close friend of both Elphick and fellow coach Shaun Cooper. He watched the move from Bournemouth’s side and felt Iraola’s departure was a major blow for the club.
“Losing our manager Andoni was a blow for the football club. He waited right until the end of the season because he loved the club so much; he hadn’t made his mind up, but I think the Liverpool thing came quite quickly.”
Fletcher believes there was little time to prepare once Liverpool came calling. The same was true of Elphick’s decision to follow his former head coach to Merseyside.
“I don’t think it was something that was planned much in advance. I think the opportunity came along, and how could you turn it down, you know? It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world.”
Alan Hutton on Elphick’s leadership and unbeaten start
Speaking in a report by the Liverpool Echo, former Aston Villa team-mate Alan Hutton said he was never surprised by where Elphick’s career was heading.
“Tommy Elphick was an absolute ‘stick-on’ to go into coaching. You just knew it instantly.”
Hutton played under Elphick’s captaincy at Villa Park and saw the leadership qualities up close, long before Elphick swapped a dressing room for a coaching bib.
“He came into Aston Villa, and he was captain, and you could just tell he was a leader in the way he spoke. If there was ever an issue or a problem, he’d help you out. He’d help anybody out, the new players or whoever needed him.”
That steady influence appears to be paying off. Liverpool remain unbeaten after five Premier League matches under Iraola, with two wins and three draws, a run that includes the win covered in our report on the Bournemouth win. The club have also reached the last 16 of the Carabao Cup and won their opening Champions League fixture, suggesting the Tommy Elphick Liverpool coach set-up under Iraola is bedding in nicely.
Adapting to Anfield expectations and future managerial ambitions
Fletcher still speaks regularly with Elphick and Cooper. Their conversations after Liverpool’s pre-season tour of America stuck with him.
“My two friends who are the coaches, Tommy Elphick and Sean Cooper. I speak to them on a regular basis. They’ve gone up with Andoni to Liverpool, and they just said the magnitude of this football club is beyond belief after touring America for two weeks.”
The scale of support caught the whole travelling party off guard, according to Fletcher.
“They said, ‘The levels of support out there – you get off the coach, and 400 people are waiting at the hotel. It’s just on another scale…the expectation level will be very different from what it was at Bournemouth.”
Fletcher put that adjustment down to the sheer size of the club Elphick now works for.
“Liverpool is a global phenomenon, and they’re going to expect big things. The only difference he will experience from being the manager at Bournemouth is that the expectation level at Liverpool Football Club is beyond belief.”
For all that adjustment, Hutton is convinced Elphick’s current job is a staging post rather than a destination.
“You could just see it in him to take it to that next level once he retired, so it’s a great move for him to go from Bournemouth to continue working with Andoni Iraola at Liverpool. It’s a great next step for him, and such a great learning curve too. He’ll be soaking everything in.”
Hutton expects Elphick to eventually want his own dugout.
“At some stage he I’m sure he’ll want to step out on his own though because he’s got those characteristics where he wants to be the main man and be the leader, so I would expect that in the future.”
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