Aaron Briggs Is Set Free
Liverpool set piece coach Aaron Briggs has left the club. The Reds' record in his time was poor but how much of that was his fault?
The Aaron Briggs era at Liverpool is over. Paul Joyce of The Times broke the news this morning that the 38-year-old set piece coach has left the club.
“Liverpool’s continuing susceptibility means the club felt that an intervention was required and a mutual decision was taken to see Briggs move on,” Joyce wrote, also noting that: “Responsibility for set pieces will now rest with [Arne] Slot and the rest of the coaching staff, including Sipke Hulshoff and Giovanni van Bronckhorst.”
It will be interesting to see if there is something equivalent to a ‘new manager bounce’ when it comes to the Reds’ set plays. If that happens, it could easily be for the same reason as when results improve after a change of manager, namely that an unusually bad run ends when it might have done anyway. There isn’t always a need for a fan-appeasing sacrificial lamb.
Because make no mistake, Liverpool - and by extension, Briggs - have been unlucky when it comes to defending dead ball situations. Granted, you can’t really sugarcoat a record of 12 conceded in the Premier League by the new year when the Reds averaged 9.9 per season across the preceding 16 campaigns. There have been some strange outcomes, though, with 5.97 set piece xG more than doubling in actual goals. This issue was analysed in relation to corners specifically earlier this month:
Both Arsenal and Liverpool have allowed 0.41 expected goals from corners for every 10 which the opposition take. Yet the goals conceded totals for the sides are two and seven respectively. The Reds’ figure for xG per 10 corners isn’t much worse than when they were a 97 point, Champions League-winning behemoth, perhaps the most defensively sound iteration of Jürgen Klopp’s Reds. Yet the goals are through the roof this term.
The other quirk of the record is that none of the 12 set play goals Liverpool have allowed has been assisted by the dead ball delivery itself. Not once has the first contact following the corner, free-kick or throw-in steered the ball into the Reds’ net. Briggs would be within his rights to highlight the defenders have been in the right places, it is what has happened on the second ball, which he can’t control, that has sealed his fate.
But perhaps it is the prevailing wind in English football that has blown him through the exit door. From 2009/10 to 2024/25, 34.6 per cent of Premier League set piece goals had a direct assist. That figure stands at 23.7 this season. For many sides, the idea is not only to produce an elaborate plan that pays dividends through first contact. Why go to that trouble when you can create some chaos before prodding the ball over the line somehow?
Even Arsenal only have two set piece assists in 2025/26, Manchester City just one. The latter’s was the simple pass Bernardo Silva played to Nico González before his long-range strike was deflected into the Liverpool goal. Because of course it was.
Whatever legitimate sympathy you may have for Aaron Briggs when it comes to the defence will likely be washed away once we look at the attacking numbers.
