Liverpool have parted company with assistant manager Zeljko Buvac.
Buvac spent 17 years working alongside Jurgen Klopp before withdrawing from first-team duty on the eve of May’s Champions League semi-final with Roma.
Anfield officials insisted at the time that the highly-rated Bosnian coach’s absence was due to ‘personal reasons’ and that he remained a club employee.
But Buvac is no longer officially part of the Reds’ setup with coach Pep Lijnders, who returned last summer, taking his place as Klopp’s joint-assistant manager.
Klopp credited the 57-year-old as ‘The Brain’ of his backroom setup and insisted he and fellow deputy Peter Krawietz were given new deals in line with his own 2016 extension.
Buvac becomes the fourth assistant to leave the club in Liverpool’s recent history.
Gerard Houllier saw ally Patrice Bergues depart in 2001 while Pako Ayestaran broke up his own partnership with Rafael Benitez just six years later.
In 2015, Brendan Rodgers sacked his long-serving assistant Colin Pascoe and first-team coach Mike Marsh as part of a short-lived restructuring plan.