Revealed: Liverpool set-piece GENIUS who Arne Slot credits for AC Milan win

Liverpool were really back to their best last night with a resounding win against AC Milan. 

The Reds started poorly going 1-0 down inside three minutes but goals from Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai turned the game on its head and secured Arne Slot’s men three points in the opening Champions League game. 

The team received a lot of praise, but Slot was quick to point out the work of one coach you may never have heard of. 

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Briggs brings the glory

Liverpool’s opening two goals last night came from set pieces and were scored by both centre-backs. This is something that is quite rare in football, but the Reds clearly had a strategy and a plan when executing these dead-ball situations. 

The first goal came from a free-kick on the left-hand side which Trent-Alexander Arnold floated into the box before Konaté leapt highest and powerfully headed beyond Mike Maignan. 

The second was from a corner on the right-hand side, swung in by Kostas Tsimikas. Van Dijk’s movement in the box to get away from Milan defenders was exquisite, he became a free man and guided his header in. 

It was refreshing to see the Reds make their set pieces count and Slot credits this to the work of Aaron Briggs. 

Briggs is Slot’s first-team individual development coach who joined this summer. He arrived on Merseyside having attained a wealth of experience. 

He worked at both Blackpool and Preston North End at the beginning of his career, before moving to Manchester City for nine years. While he was there, he worked his way up to senior first-team analyst. 

He then made his way to AS Monaco where he became assistant coach and head of football methodology at the Ligue 1 club. He then moved to VfL Wolfsburg as assistant coach before finally making his way to Liverpool. 

Slot was full of praise for Briggs in his post-match interview stating, “One of my assistants puts a lot of work in. It’s very good work from the players who scored, but also Aaron who’s the assistant who takes charge of the set pieces.” 

The Reds manager was quick to recognise the importance of those set pieces in getting Liverpool back into the game and ultimately taking the lead. 

Liverpool's AI-assisted corners

Liverpool also have used the help of AI to assist them with their corners.

Per the Athletic,

the Reds teamed up with Google DeepMind this summer, building strategies for scoring from corners. 

Nearly 10,000 corners were fed into the AI, along with data on each player involved both for Liverpool and the opposition. 

Liverpool's AI determined that Milan would struggle against Konaté and Van Dijk if the ball was sent into the six-yard box. This information must have been key to Briggs and his team and it certainly paid off.