Thomas Gronnemark will leave Liverpool at the end of the season after five years as the club's specialist throw-in coach.
The Dane was employed by Jurgen Klopp at the start of the 2018/19 campaign after the Reds boss discovered that his team were losing possession too often from their own throws.
Liverpool initially ranked 18th in the Premier League for taking throw-ins when under pressure, meaning they often lost the ball when restarting play but Gronnemark's coaching saw a dramatic rise at Anfield, to the point where they were retaining possession over 68% of the time. That was a tally which took them to the top spot in England and second in Europe behind only FC Midtjylland, who were the other club who the specialist was working with at the time.
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Gronnemark's first two full seasons at Anfield - a period when he would visit Merseyside around a half dozen times a campaign - saw Liverpool win the Premier League and Champions League while also celebrating a first-ever Club World Cup in December 2019.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions, which were compounded by the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, have made it more difficult for Gronnemark to visit as often as he had previously been able to and it's understood the coach has been limited in the number of sessions he has put on at the club in recent years as a result.
The nature of the 21/22 campaign, when the Reds played 63 games in total, also reduced the time available to the coaching staff on the training pitches, which inevitably had a knock-on effect on Gronnemark's time with the first-team players.
The popular Gronnemark has remained in position to oversee Liverpool's throw-ins since but most of the work undertaken in recent times has been remote, detailed analysis rather than practical coaching on the training pitches of the Reds' AXA Centre in Kirkby.
Gronnemark, who also helps out at Ajax, Toulouse, Brentford, Philadelphia Union and Mexican club Pachuca, was most recently on Merseyside last month where he took control of his final sessions at Liverpool before holding a conversation with Klopp about their respective futures.
The ECHO understands Liverpool are looking to use their own in-house throwing coaches from next season onwards as Klopp plots a way back towards the top of English football this summer and with Gronnemark unable to visit the club's Kirkby base of often as he did at the beginning of their working relationship, it's been mutually decided that he will step now away for good.
"I'll forever be thankful to Jurgen for bringing me into the club as well as the staff at Liverpool and all the fans around the world," Gronnemark told the ECHO. "Jurgen was brave enough to bring in a throw-in coach and that opened up a lot of opportunities for me.
"This job [at Liverpool] has changed my life and helped my family, so I am forever thankful to Jurgen, the staff and the players. And also to the fans around the world, it really has meant a lot.
"I was pinching my arm in the first period when I joined to see if it was real and now our work has not only made a big difference to the club, it has also helped me get to a position where I could make a change in football.
"It was not always my biggest goal to win titles like we did with Liverpool. I've won 14 titles with my clubs around the world; teams like Ajax, Flamengo, FC Midtjylland, Philadelphia Union and Toulouse, in France, who recently won a French Cup for the first time in over 60 years. It's all been totally fantastic.
"But the biggest goal for me has been to improve throws to make it a better game for everyone to enjoy. My job at Liverpool has really helped me achieve that and it's helped me and my family a lot because now other clubs are looking at it and saying: 'If Liverpool is using this throw-in coach they maybe we should be too.'"
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