Naturally, 2024-25 is a campaign that Liverpool’s first assistant coach Sipke Hulshoff will always cherish.

As Arne Slot’s long-time lieutenant, Hulshoff is a double domestic champion: once in the Eredivisie with Feyenoord and now, at the first time of asking, in the Premier League.

Having helped to deliver the Reds’ 20th top-flight title, Hulshoff sat down with Liverpoolfc.com at the AXA Training Centre to review an historic season from his perspective.

We start at the beginning.

In partnership with Slot and his fellow coaches, Hulshoff is responsible for designing and planning training sessions.

During the earliest weeks of their tenure, Liverpool’s new leadership group had to do so without many senior players due to their commitments at Euro 2024 and the Copa America.

But Hulshoff – who first worked alongside Slot at SC Cambuur Leeuwarden a decade ago – recalls: “Of course, if you want to build in new things in your squad it’s always a little bit sad that a lot of players are not in but we already knew they would be away and if I look to myself, I was an academy coach for a long time so I like to work with young players.

“So, by working with them you learn to know the young players very well. For me, a training session is a training session and I like to give training sessions. As soon as we started it felt natural. It felt very comfortable – in Dutch they say, ‘as a fish in the water’.

“So, it was very nice to start with the young lads and then there comes a moment that we were also happy that the total squad came in because then we could work to the principles for the start of the season.

“But at the start, we used a lot of videos from those sessions with the young players to show the senior players what the idea was and what the gaffer wanted.”

Once the international contingent were back, it became clear to Hulshoff that he was working with players of the highest calibre.

“You could see immediately from the start that they are top players,” he says.

“You could see that they are top players in behaviour, in mentality, and actually how they do our exercises because it’s normal that you use exercises that you did also with your former clubs.

“Then you can see the difference in level. If you do the same exercise, for example, first with Cambuur and then with Feyenoord and then you bring it here, you can really see that these boys can play.

“I don’t know the exact word but you can see it more in repetition. For example, if you look to maybe a Cambuur player, in three from the 10 times of doing an exercise you see quality. At Feyenoord maybe you see six out of 10 that are quality, but then you come here and most of the time, 10 times out of 10 it is quality. I think that is the difference between a top player and a world-class player.

“I was not surprised, but I was very happy when I saw the level.”

Hulshoff goes on to describe why he and Slot opted for evolution, not revolution.

He adds: “Of course, I watched already a lot of games before I came in and I knew already they had a very good coach for the last seasons, with Jürgen [Klopp] and Pepijn [Lijnders], and you saw the mentality they already had.

“We were happy that from the moment we came in they already had a certain level and you always try, and I follow the boss of course, to also implement something from your own identity as a new coaching staff.

“I think we used a lot from the former coaching staff and we implemented some things from our own coaching staff. We combined it and I think you can see the end result of the season we have had.

“Every coach tries to bring in, of course, his own ideas and it has to be like that because otherwise every coach would be the same. But we would be stupid if we don’t use the good things from the coach who was here before for a long time, and I think that is what we did.

“The mentality of the players was good and ‘world-class players’ is not only about with the feet but also in the head. It’s about the full picture of a player and that is why these players adapt very fast and why they play at this level.”

Liverpool’s season duly began serenely.

Their first three Premier League games yielded nine points, with seven goals scored and none conceded, as Ipswich Town and Brentford were each beaten 2-0 before the Reds defeated Manchester United 3-0 at Old Trafford.

So far, so good, then. But that early-season momentum was halted by the first international break of the campaign and the game that immediately followed it.

Liverpool 0-1 Nottingham Forest.

A chastening afternoon but a learning experience as it proved the coaches’ hypothesis about, and early experiences of, the Premier League.

“That was not really a wake-up call but we were very disappointed, of course, because we had already three very good results and normally you should win that game at home,” Hulshoff remembers.

“But it gave us also something that we knew already, which is that this competition does not have weak teams and that was also the moment that we saw it for the first time.

“We already had a little bit of feeling at Ipswich because they were a team that came up from the Championship last season and we saw during the first half there. It was 0-0 during half-time and it was, ‘If this is a level from a team who comes up from the Championship, how good is the rest?’

“So, something that we discussed afterwards was: ‘OK, we have to be really, really 100 per cent prepared to get results in every game.’

“The Nottingham Forest game, it did not open our eyes but it was something that we saw and felt what the level was from this competition.”

Liverpool’s response to that setback was emphatic and included a week that was, in Hulshoff’s opinion, the team’s best of the season.

“The week that we played Real Madrid and Manchester City at home. In four days, we beat them both 2-0,” he says.

“That was, for me, an amazing week: top-level football, how we pressed them, the intensity of the games, the reaction from the crowd. I think if I have to pick one week that was the best in terms of performance that would be it because of the intensity and how we blew them away.”

Having lost to Forest, the Reds pieced together a 26-match unbeaten streak in the Premier League that ultimately made the title a formality.

Confirmation came with four games to spare in late April when, amid unforgettable scenes at Anfield, Tottenham Hotspur were routed 5-1.

“The week we became champions, I think that will always stay in your memory. I will never forget it,” Hulshoff says with a smile.

“The moment we came to the stadium and you saw the amount of people, it was crazy. We sit at the front of the bus so we had the best view! I think the total picture of the day is that you can never forget it and I’m very happy with the videos and photos I have. You could feel that something special would happen.

“Then you go 1-0 down and for 10 seconds, you feel the crowd go quiet. But after 10 seconds they picked it up again and this was the moment I felt, ‘We will never, never, never lose this game.’

“And then you can start to celebrate and enjoy it the moment we scored the 4-1. That was when I started to look around and you see all the people, you see people who are there with their young kids, and you see how happy they were and that makes you very proud.”

Hulshoff’s next words provide an insight into the manner in which he and Slot go about their jobs – the approach they take and also the responsibility they feel.

He continues: “That, for me, is the nicest thing about football: if I look how happy the people are with the things that we do all together.

“That is also why I became a coach – and I know it is the same for Arne because we have known each other for a very long time – because for me a football stadium, you can compare it with a theatre.

“So, recently we went to see Bruce Springsteen in Manchester and I think he is the best example. I am a big fan of Bruce and what I like, what I have always liked, is that people are always so happy to go to his concerts. Everybody is smiling, everybody is dancing and for me, it’s the same as a coach – that is what you want.

“That’s also why I love to do attacking football because if you lose by playing attacking football and working hard, people can still go home and tell their family that they had a nice evening.

“Of course, at a top club you can never lose but sometimes you do and if you lose by still playing attacking football, by still having shots on target, by working so, so hard, then nobody will blame you.

“That is for me like a theatre or a show, that is what I compare always with Bruce: the people, we want to give them a nice evening and that is, for me, part of football.”

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Our conversation concludes with a question on what Hulshoff, Slot and the coaching staff have learned that will help shape their strategy for Liverpool’s Premier League title defence.

The assistant’s reply is immediate.

“That you cannot win one game on only 90 per cent because every team has, or buys, quality players. We have to be well prepared in a tactical way, in a physical way, in a technical way, in a mental way for every game because you can never win in this league when you are at 90 per cent,” Hulshoff states.

“I think that is the biggest lesson: that every club, every team, has quality – and individual qualities, not only team qualities. Every team can decide a game with individual quality or set-pieces.

“You have to always be well prepared in every aspect. We knew it already but we learned it this season.”