Liquid bench shox and adreN
Liquid announced its coach and French rifler are stepping down for the North American team to explore other options for the future.
Liquid has announced that changes are coming with the removal of two members from the active roster. HLTV learned that the team wanted to go in a different direction in the coaching department, which ended up in the benching of Eric "adreN" Hoag, while veteran Richard "shox" Papillon stepped down and is currently also on the bench while he sorts his next move.

The changes come after a poor start of the year for Liquid, whose best result in 2022 has been a 5-8th place finishes at ESL Pro League Season 15. Other than that, the North American squad failed to make it out of BLAST Premier Spring Groups, after which they were then knocked out in the Showdown, and also fell in the group stages at IEM Katowice, PGL Major Antwerp and IEM Dallas.
On an individual level, shox wasn't able to show his best form on the biggest stages in his six-month tenure with the North American team, posting a 0.94 average rating, although he put up strong numbers against lesser opposition in the NA RMR and its open qualifier.
For adreN, this marks the end of his second stint as Liquid's coach, a position which he retook in May 2021 after departing the squad in late 2020. This time around he wasn't able to reach the same heights as he did when he stood behind the squad that won the Intel Grand Slam in 2019, and leaves without any new trophies to his name.
The announcement of changes comes just days before the IEM Cologne roster lock, which will put pressure on Liquid to find a fifth player for the last Big Event of the season ahead of the player break.
Liquid is now:
Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski
Josh "oSee" Ohm
Nick "nitr0" Cannella
Keith "NAF" Markovic
Eric "adreN" Hoag (benched)
Richard "shox" Papillon (benched)