O'Neil finalises backroom staff at Bournemouth
Moss (left) returns as Head of Goalkeeping, while Jenkins (right) joins from Liverpool as first-team coach
Written by Training Ground Guru — December 26, 2022
GARY O’NEIL has finalised his backroom staff at Bournemouth after being appointed Head Coach at the end of November.
The 39-year-old agreed an 18-month deal to become Cherries boss after 12 matches as Interim Head Coach. Now he has named his assistants.
Neil Moss returns as Head of Goalkeeping, 18 months after leaving the club. Moss was sacked in June 2021 following the arrival of new manager Scott Parker, who brought in his own goalkeeping coach, Rob Burch. Moss then went on to work as a National Goalkeeper Coach with the Football Association.
He has a long association with the Cherries, having made his first-team debut for them as a 17-year-old keeper. After making 211 senior appearances for the club, he became goalkeeper coach for them in June 2009 and worked with top keepers including England international Aaron Ramsdale.
The other new members of O’Neil’s staff are first-team coaches Tommy Elphick, Shaun Cooper and Tim Jenkins.
Elphick is the most successful captain in Bournemouth’s history. He skippered the Cherries to two promotions - to the Championship in 2012/13 and the Premier League in 2014/15.
He joined the club’s coaching staff in September 2021 as Under-23s (subsequently U21s) coach, having made more than 400 appearances during a 16-year playing career.
Cooper made 240 appearances for the club between 2005 and 2012 and returned in in October 2018 as U13s coach. He became U23s lead in November 2018 when Carl Fletcher was appointed Loans Manager.
Details of who will fill the Academy roles vacated by Elphick and Cooper will be announced in due course.
And Tim Jenkins has left Liverpool after a decade to join the Cherries. He began his career as an analyst with Prozone in 2001, working as the club’s representative at Derby County, before becoming junior Academy manager at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire.
In 2012 he joined Liverpool, initially as Academy Head of Analysis, working mainly with the U23s. He knows O’Neil from his time as Liverpool U23s assistant from August 2020 to February 2021. Since June, Jenkins had been Head of Individual Development for Liverpool.
This is another example of a trend TGG has covered before: someone with an analysis background taking a first-team coaching role. Other examples are Adam Sadler (Leicester City first-team coach), Joao Sacramento (Jose Mourinho's assistant at Tottenham and Roma), Joe Carnall (ex-Millwall first-team coach), Mark Leyland (Newcastle coach/ analyst) and Danny Rohl (Germany assistant).
Nottingham Forest Head of Analysis Steve Rands has told TGG: “That merge between the two roles (coaching and analysis) is starting to happen. It is now more common to see an analyst sat on the bench, giving instruction directly to the player instead of having to go through a coach.
"There is that pattern now, where each is crossing into the other’s domain, and it’s working.”
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