FORMER Arsenal midfielder Giovanni van Bronckhorst is set to join Arne Slot’s staff at Liverpool.
The 50-year-old is the leading candidate to replace Slot’s right-hand man John Heitinga, who quit the Premier League champions to become manager at Ajax.
Liverpool sporting director, Richard Hughes, has been keen to find a replacement ahead of pre-season and Van Bronckhorst, who has managed at Feyenoord, Rangers, and Besiktas fits the bill.
Although a deal has not yet been done, Van Bronckhorst is now in talks with the owning Fenway Sports Group about forming part of a backroom team alongside Sipke Hulshoff and Aaron Briggs.
The former Netherlands captain, who played for Arsenal between 2001 and 2004, is keen on a return to the Premier League, after spending the last six months working as a Uefa analyst.
Van Bronckhorst has never worked with Slot and doesn’t have a close relationship with him, although the pair share similar ideas around playing style and have both won the Dutch league.
If a deal is completed, Van Bronckhorst would arrive at the club with a wealth of coaching experience.
After retiring in 2010, he began his coaching career in Feyenoord’s youth setup before spending four years as the club’s first team manager, winning the Eredivisie in 2017.
Van Bronckhorst then replaced Steven Gerrard as Rangers boss in 2021, guiding them to the Europa League final in 2022 where they lost to Eintracht Frankfurt.
He was also in charge of the Scottish side, who he played for between 1998 and 2001, when they lost 7-1 to Liverpool in the Champions League in October 2022.
Following his dismissal a month later in November, he was also sacked from his position as Besiktas manager after five months in charge in December 2024.
Van Bronckhorst, who later turned into a left-back in his career, won the last of his 106 caps for the Netherlands in the World Cup final in 2010, captaining Heitinga as the Dutch lost 1-0 to Spain in Johannesburg.
Meanwhile, former Everton defender Heitinga wants to take goalkeeper Vitezslav Jaros, who made his Liverpool debut against Crystal Palace in the Premier League this season, to Ajax on loan.
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