Liverpool assistant coach Hulkov: You still insist on attacking football when you lose, no one will blame you

June 1: Liverpool's first assistant coach Sipke Hulkov was interviewed by the club's official website. He said that the 2024-25 season is a season that he will always cherish.

Hulshov: By working with them, you can get a good understanding of young players. For me, training classes are training classes, and I like to teach training classes. We felt natural from the beginning. It feels very comfortable, like a fish in water. Therefore, it is very good to start training from young lads.

Then, when the entire roster returns, we are also happy because so we can set principles for the season to start to practice. But in the beginning, we used a lot of videos from training with young players to show veterans our philosophy and what the coach wants.

From the beginning you can immediately tell that they are top players, you can tell that they are top players in their behavior and mentality, and you can actually tell that they perform training content because it is normal to use training programs you used to coach other clubs before.

Then you can see the difference in level. For example, if you do the same training, do it first at Kampul, then at Feyenoord, and then bring it here to Liverpool to do it, you can really see how good these Liverpool players can play. I don't know what to say about the exact words, but you'll see it more clearly in repetitive training.

For example, if you look at Kampul's players, you may only show high quality in three of ten training sessions. In Feyenoord, six out of ten times are of high quality. But when you come to Liverpool, most of the time, ten out of ten are of high quality. I think that's the difference between top players and world-class players. I wasn't surprised, but I was so happy when I saw this level.

Hulshov explains why he and Slot chose "evolution over revolution".

Hulshov: Of course, I've watched a lot of games before I came, and I know they have had a really good coach over the past few seasons, Klopp and Linders, and you can see the mentality that the team already has. We are very happy that the team has already achieved a certain level since the moment we took over. Of course, we always try to incorporate some of our own qualities as the new coaching team. I think we have followed a lot of things from the former coaching team, and also joined some of our coaching team’s own stuff.

We combine the two and I think you can see the final result of our season. Of course every coach will try to introduce his own ideas and must do so, otherwise all coaches will be the same.

But if we don't take advantage of the good stuff left by the former coach who has coached here for a long time, we're so stupid, and I think that's what we do. The players have good psychological qualities, and the ‘world-class players’ are not only dependent on their feet, but also on their minds. It's about a player's overall quality, which is why these players adapt very quickly and why they can play at this level.

Hulshov talked about their approach and the sense of responsibility they felt.

Hurshov said: For me, that's the best place for football: seeing people so happy because of the cause we accomplished together. That's why I became a coach, and I know that Slot is the same because we've known each other for a long time. Because to me, a football field can be compared to a theater.

So, we went to Manchester to see the Blues Springsteen concert, and I think he is the best example. I'm a big fan of Blues, and what I love, and always loves is that people are always so happy when they go to his concerts. Everyone is smiling, everyone is dancing, and to me, it’s the same as being a coach, and that’s what you want to achieve.

This is also why I like to play offensive football. Because if you lose while playing offensive football and going all out, people can still go home and tell their family that they have a great night.

Of course, you must never lose in a top club, but sometimes you do lose. If you still stick to the offense when you lose, still try to shoot the goal, and still try your best, then no one will blame you. To me it's like a theater or a show, and I always compare blues: we want to give people a good night, and to me it's part of football.