As the dust settled after Bournemouth’s win over Arsenal on Saturday, one of the unsung members of the backroom team was taking the plaudits.
Goalscorer Ryan Christie was quick to credit assistant first-team coach Shaun Cooper as the man behind the set-piece routine which conjured the opening goal fired past the Gunners.
Isle of Wight-born utility man Cooper made 240 appearances in seven seasons with the Cherries during his playing days – lining up in every position except goalkeeper and striker.
As a coach, too, the 41-year-old has filled various roles, rising through the academy age groups to assist boss Andoni Iraola alongside fellow ex-Cherries skipper Tommy Elphick, although that was not originally the plan.
Iraola had wanted to bring Inigo Perez, his assistant from Rayo Vallecano, with him to Vitality Stadium, but Perez did not meet the Home Office’s criteria for a work permit. (Subsequently, despite not clearing the UK authorities’ bar for an assistant coach role, Perez is now back in La Liga… as Vallecano’s head coach).
It meant that while some overseas managers arrive in the Premier League with a supporting cast of up to half a dozen, Iraola’s only fellow new arrival was fitness coach Pablo de la Torre, with Elphick and Cooper continuing in the roles they had held under Gary O’Neil.
And while there has been much attention of late around the top-flight clubs who have hired specialist set-piece coaches, at Bournemouth it has often been an additional task handed to one of the existing coaches – Jason Tindall (assistant manager under Eddie Howe) or Rob Burch (goalkeeping coach under Scott Parker), and now Cooper.
Elphick, meanwhile, has almost been Iraola’s de facto number two, standing in for the Spaniard when he has been unavailable, such as while serving a recent one-match touchline ban, as well as forming a close triumvirate with Iraola and Cooper.
