The brilliance of Florian Wirtz is now beginning to shine through at Liverpool after a period of settling in to his new surroundings…
SOMETIMES it’s easy to see.
I remember watching Xabi Alonso on an early autumn Saturday afternoon at Anfield against Norwich City in 2004 and being utterly spellbound.
The youngster glided across the pitch like a figure skater. He used Anfield as his chess board, plotting his strategy by playing through, around and over. Wreaking havoc with 11 yellow pawns in front of him.
Alonso isn’t the only one. There’s a 12-minute YouTube compilation of Luis Suárez versus Sunderland from one of his early 2010 games we covered on Rewind this week. The focus was apt because although there were ten other Liverpool players present – including £35m Andy Carroll – it was essentially Suárez versus Sunderland.
He was perpetual skill, fury, energy, frustration and mesmeric brilliance from minute one.
Other times it’s harder to see. Thiago Alcantara spent his first six months in a Liverpool shirt doing Lucas Leiva and Paul Scholes tackling impressions. It clicked towards the end of 2020-21 and we were blessed with one of the finest footballers to ever grace Anfield.
Brendan Rodgers inexplicably chose players like Christian Benteke and Danny Ings over Roberto Firmino, who was either benched or even shunted to wing-back on one occasion. Jürgen Klopp corrected such a misdemeanour, and we got a player who redefined the number nine position in this country.
Florian Wirtz was seen as a slow burn at Liverpool, mocked up as James Bond and having letters of his surname changed to something more derogatory by opposition internet supporters. Wirtz wasn’t playing badly, but without goals or assists being registered he was viewed as an embodiment of Liverpool’s ills.
I’m unsure what I expected from Wirtz. He didn’t fit the profile of player Liverpool had bought over the past decade. He was more Philippe Coutinho than Dominik Szoboszlai. He was still potential, but top-tier pricing potential. This wasn’t what Liverpool did.
The strategy we’ve gotten used to for attackers was low value, high return investments on pace and athleticism with enough coachability. Wirtz came with a reputation for supreme technical brilliance, but he wasn’t athletically supreme. He would, in theory, help us turn tight games into processions. He would pick locks and feed the proficiency we’d invested in at number nine. Output would continue in droves from wide-forwards, we thought.
None of it quite worked out that way.
The first thing to say about the German is that he grafts. People have commented on him taking time to adapt to the Premier League’s physicality, which is true because the player is far more physical than people realise.
Wirtz has averaged between 6.25 and 7.21 pressure regains per 90 this season for Liverpool, placing him in the 99th percentile for his position. He constantly turns up in the top two Liverpool pressers and counter-pressers per game. If Wirtz has looked unable to complete games, it’s because he’s ran himself into the ground.
While off the ball has been consistent, on it has required more patience. Earlier in the season, Wirtz was coming too deep and too short for the ball. He was crowding space and breaking shape in a way that was ineffective.
Premier League teams simply sat off and blocked the spaces in front of him, meaning Wirtz would constantly be in a building phase and not in positions to hurt them.
Since around Christmas, we’ve seen Wirtz be more disciplined and operating higher up the pitch. The goals and assists have arrived. They were always going to. The reaction of opposition supporters came from how good they thought he would be from minute one.
We’re now starting to see what a Florian Wirtz goal looks like. He has made that 12-18 yards from goal space his target range. Numbers wise on the ball he performs highest for touches in the box (5.90-6.05 per 90) and pass percentage (83). There is room for improvement with things like xG (0.14-0.22) and dribbles (1.65-1.97), but these are good numbers that are getting better.
More importantly, he looks more mentally and physically suited to playing for Liverpool. Having three players in front of him has been crucial, although I haven’t hated his cameos on the left.
The question now becomes what type of player Florian Wirtz will become. Arne Slot has made previous comparisons to Kevin De Bruyne, who is an excellent role model for Wirtz. De Bruyne also went on a journey both physically and mentally through his career before becoming, in football terms, a killer. He was pure output and numbers that mattered. He was a winger, a central midfielder, part of a forward line; Manchester City built a team around him not so he could roam, but because he could be deadly in every phase.
But comparing Wirtz to the halcyon of De Bruyne’s career is unfair. At Wirtz’ age, De Bruyne was lost at Chelsea, about to go on loan at Wolfsburg and start again. Wirtz is being fast-tracked to such a trajectory. If he can emulate De Bruyne and do so earlier, Liverpool can be very excited about what’s to come.
There’s a reason he was mocked. They all know exactly how good he is and hopefully will become.
