New season, same story. Florian Wirtz’s performances for Liverpool are being criticised.
There’s no question that Wirtz has failed to live up to his billing since moving from Bayer Leverkusen last summer for £116million ($157m). It’s also inarguable that he bears responsibility for the deficiencies of his first season. Moving to the Premier League from the Bundesliga is a challenge, but it’s one he accepted with an understanding of what it might involve.
And yet there’s a disingenuous aspect to the coverage. It often identifies Wirtz as the underperforming player within an otherwise healthy side. Clearly, that is not the case. Compared with Jurgen Klopp’s magnificent team and the one that won the Premier League in Arne Slot’s first season in charge, Liverpool have been clunky and vulnerable over the past 13 months, playing without identity, fluidity or confidence.
How many players in world football would succeed under the same conditions? Goalscorers sometimes can because their existence — they take chances and miss chances — tends to be simpler and more binary, albeit more pressurised. But there are few players who could be dropped into the interior of a side and then be expected to perform independently of the mood or chemistry.
Rhythm matters, too.
Memories of Wirtz in Germany are all quite similar. The 23-year-old would flow with the ball, moving forward at every opportunity, with so much of his game depending upon instinct, quick decisions and understanding with his team-mates. There was a lightness to his touches, whereas now he plays slower, more deliberately, and without nearly the same certainty in what he’s doing.
During the 2-2 draw with Newcastle United last weekend, there was an instructive passage of play in the second half. Wirtz received the ball just across the halfway line, moved into space, and tried to push Cody Gakpo infield, towards the penalty box. Gakpo did not anticipate the ball and, rather than running into a shooting position, he was slow to react. The ball was intercepted, and the move ended.
Assigning blame for that move’s failure is not important. Did Gakpo need to get on his team-mate’s wavelength or should Wirtz have played the ball to feet, as the Dutchman seems to prefer? Neither matters as much as the realisation that Liverpool’s football, especially around Wirtz, too often tends to be disjointed in precisely that way. Someone tries something. It does not quite work.
It’s not Wirtz’s fault, nor is it Gakpo’s — it’s an example of a mismatched combination in which neither player is getting what they need. And that’s the context required to assess this situation.
Wirtz and Liverpool were largely unconvincing in their opening-day draw at Newcastle (George Wood/Getty Images)
Before his big-money move to Anfield, Wirtz’s conditions at Leverkusen were perfect. He played in front of a two-man midfield that included Granit Xhaka and provided a reliable source of line-cutting possession. On either side of him, he had a wing-back tandem — comprising Alejandro Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong — that posed individual threats but also moved and positioned itself in a way that either created space for him or passing avenues he could exploit.
Further forward, Alonso’s Leverkusen often used their centre-forward as a pivot rather than a line-leader. Whether it was Victor Boniface or Patrik Schick, the player used in that role would regularly play deeper, outside of the penalty box in open play, moving in a way that either displaced defenders or provided Wirtz with a combination to use.
The point is not that Liverpool should play like Leverkusen. It is not to say, either, that Andoni Iraola should be tuning his new side specifically around the needs of one player. Does that even work in modern football? Instead, it’s to recognise that Wirtz was a product of his environment in Leverkusen in the same way that he is now at Liverpool, albeit with a contrasting outcome.
It’s also ludicrous to have a hardened position on his future in England, one competitive game into Iraola’s tenure, especially when the Premier League is full of examples of how players respond to changing circumstances for better and for worse.
Wirtz made his name at Bayer Leverkusen, where he won the Bundesliga (Pau Barrena/Getty Images)
Even just at Liverpool alone, consider the careers of Andy Robertson and Jordan Henderson, who succeeded because of their harmony with the team and a particular era. Or the transfers of Darwin Nunez or Naby Keita, who ultimately did not.
Premier League teams have always depended on combinations as much as individuals. Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard. The Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane trio, which was so ludicrously well-balanced and so suited the way Klopp wanted to play.
Going further afield, look at the difference in Ousmane Dembele’s career over the past few years. He went from being a spare part at Barcelona to a Ballon d’Or winner within three years at Paris Saint-Germain. Or consider the spike in Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich performances following Luis Diaz’s move to the Bundesliga last summer.
The talent of the individual player is never enough; it always has to be captured properly.
Bradley Barcola will likely join Liverpool in the coming days, providing another shift in the chemistry. It will benefit some of his new team-mates and disadvantage others. But until Iraola has constructed a team out of all these parts, existing or otherwise, it’s impossible to know who can play where and with what kind of effect.
And that still includes Wirtz, however much he may have cost.
