Florian Wirtz does not look like a £116m player but it is early to write him off

When Florian Wirtz signed for Liverpool in the summer of 2025, there was only one logical assumption. The Premier League champions at the time had recruited one of the hottest young talents in world football – a key player in the Bayer Leverkusen team that had won the double in 2023-24 and a star in the Germany team. An exciting and productive young attacking midfielder being added to the best team in England? How could this not work?

Football has a habit of flipping the script, though. Last season was difficult for Liverpool for several reasons, and Wirtz, along with other new arrivals, struggled to make the impact expected of a £116m player. There were conversations among fans this summer about how long he and fellow nine-figure signing Alexander Isak should be given before difficult questions needed be asked. The consensus was until Christmas.

As it turned out, the real answer was after the opening game as Wirtz and Isak laboured in Liverpool’s 2-2 draw at Newcastle and loud doubts began to surface. Jamie Carragher spoke on the first Monday Night Football of the season about Wirtz’s signing in 2025 potentially being part of the “worst transfer window in Premier League history”.

The former Liverpool defender was criticising a few players – and Isak has since gone on to score four times in his last four league appearances to quieten his doubters – but Carragher focused his ire on Wirtz again on Sunday in a new podcast for Sky Sports.

“The reason I worry is, I don’t think Wirtz is in poor form since he came to Liverpool. I think what we’re seeing is what he is,” he said. “The worry for Wirtz now is that what he’s given Liverpool is so low. Where we were expecting him was to take Liverpool to another league title, to take Liverpool to a Champions League. The gap he’s got to close to justify what people were expecting I almost think is too big. You can’t get there. Even if he improves a bit, it’s still not what Liverpool thought they were getting. Andoni Iraola’s got a decision to make here. Wirtz would not be in my Liverpool team.”

Carragher derided Wirtz – who has just one assist in six games this season – for his performance in the team’s 1-0 win at Bournemouth, calling it “one of the poorest I’ve ever seen him in a Liverpool shirt”. Iraola was more generous though and accepted that the German had struggled in the first half. “He started the game slowly,” Iraola said. “After that first phase, we improved. Florian has helped us also to improve. Second half he was playing much better, he was finding better spots to receive and turn. I’m much more happy with his second half.”

Wirtz’s numbers from the game were not that bad. He created three chances, the joint-most of any Liverpool player along with Cody Gakpo; he won six of his eight duels; and he won possession four times: only Alexis Mac Allister (seven), Ronald Araújo (six), and Jérémy Jacquet (six) won the ball more often for the visitors.

Perhaps we should not be saying this, being Opta and all, but data does not always tell the whole story. Anyone watching the game could see a player struggling to impose himself, with several passes not finding the target. Only 26 of Wirtz’s 37 attempted passes reached a teammate (70.3%). That is not unusual for a creative midfielder but there were too many simple balls sloppily overhit or played too close to Bournemouth defenders.

Wirtz received a lot of criticism for giving the ball away; he lost possession 15 times before leaving the pitch in the 71st minute. Only Araújo (24) and Gakpo (16) did so more often, though they both played the whole game. That said, “possession lost” is a tricky statistic to hang your hat on, as creative players who play risky passes in the busiest areas of the pitch often find themselves losing the ball the most.

He also made a near-post run in the second half that led to the ball dropping kindly for Isak to score the winner. It did not go down as an assist as it touched a defender on the way to Isak but, without Wirtz’s run, the goal would not have happened. He also showed some nice moments, even in the first half. He drifted through defenders before winning a free-kick on the edge of the Bournemouth penalty area early on, while a classy one-touch layoff to Isak could have been a nice assist if the striker hadn’t sent his shot high and wide.

Expectations were greater for Wirtz, though. He was meant to take games by the scruff of the neck and decide them with moments of brilliance like he did at Leverkusen. Suggestions that Wirtz maybe just isn’t good enough to be the player he was expected to be in the Premier League seem harsh, though. There was hype around his arrival for very good reason.

After joining Leverkusen from FC Köln at the age of 16, he recorded 18 goals and 21 assists in 69 games in his first two full seasons. Wirtz tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in March 2022, though, and missed 10 months of action.

He showed no ill effects on his return, playing a central role in one of the most incredible campaigns by a team in recent years. Leverkusen won their first Bundesliga title, becoming the first team to go unbeaten over a league season in the German top flight. They also won the DFB-Pokal, and reached the Europa League final, where a defeat to Atalanta was their only loss in any competition across the entire campaign.

Wirtz recorded 18 goals and 19 assists in 47 games that season; the only player from Europe’s top five leagues to record at least 16 goals and 16 assists in all competitions. He produced 16 goals and 14 assists in his final season before heading to England, with only Mohamed Salah (18) and Lamine Yamal (13) getting more than his 12 assists from open play among players from Europe’s top five leagues.

However, he recorded only seven goals and eight assists in 49 games in his first season at Liverpool, and it took until late December to register his first league goal as the champions struggled, ultimately limping home in fifth place and ending the campaign without a trophy. To be fair, it was a hard environment to come into. The death of Diogo Jota cast a dark cloud over the club and Arne Slot struggled to get his team playing anywhere near as coherently as they had the previous year.

Wirtz was far from terrible, though. He was by some considerable distance Liverpool’s most creative outlet in open play, which helped after the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold. He created 95 chances from open play in all competitions, at least 27 more than any other Liverpool player. But there was no denying that it was a disappointing debut season for him.

The World Cup was a chance to show he could do it on the big stage and he managed three assists in four games for Germany before they were eliminated on penalties by Paraguay in the last 32. Only two players at the tournament had more assists at the end of that round, and only five players created more chances from open play than his nine. Despite that, he still bore the brunt of criticism from many in Germany for their underwhelming showing, such are the standards expected of him.

With a pre-season under Iraola, though, there was hope that a new system and a fresh start would help. You could argue he has played pretty well in at least two of his six appearances so far this season. Liverpool were not great in the 2-2 home draw with Nottingham Forest, but Wirtz was their main threat, denied what would have been a well-taken goal by an offside call against Jeremie Frimpong, and playing a neat pass into Víctor Muñoz for their second equaliser.

He was also impressive in the 2-1 home win over Atlético Madrid in the Champions League, and would have had another assist had Bradley Barcola not dragged his shot wide when sent through on goal by some sharp play by Wirtz.

While he struggled to make much of an impact in games against Newcastle, Ipswich Town and Fulham, those “what if” moments have been a theme. Wirtz was not great in the 2-0 win at Ipswich, but he did produce a fine turn and cross for Isak to score what would have been his hat-trick goal, only for the flag to deny him by the narrowest of margins.

Wirtz has at least been trying to make a difference in possession. He has made 19 progressive passes in the league this season (joint 16th), level with Martin Ødegaard and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. He has also made 43 line-breaking passes at a rate of 9.6 per 90, almost double his 5.2 per 90 in the Premier League last season.

Another area where there has been an increase, numbers-wise, from Wirtz this season is off the ball. He has won possession in the opposition’s final third six times in the Premier League; only five players have done so more often, while only five have applied more pressures than him (419) and only six have received more pressures (260), showing that he is doing his work out of possession and is occupying defenders in possession. He ranked joint 12th, 21st and 27th in the Premier League for each metric, respectively, last season.

Wirtz has also covered the most distance of Liverpool players in three of his five Premier League games, but it is his lack of impact on the ball that seems to have most people taking aim. He has been underwhelming, but six appearances into a new season seems early to be making damning conclusions. Things have barely got going under Iraola, and Liverpool as a team are clearly still several rungs below their potential.

Wirtz is a 23-year-old trying to find his feet in the strongest league in the world, and while there is no denying that he’s far from his best, that doesn’t mean improvement is impossible, or even unlikely.

The eye-watering fee is undoubtedly a factor for the critics. Whether fair or not, players are judged against how much they cost. Paul Pogba was hardly a success story at Manchester United, but the criticism often felt over the top, mostly because of his £93m fee and the hype that followed his return to Old Trafford in 2016.

The big question is can Wirtz ever show more in England? Undeniably world-class players have failed to do so in the past, including another highly rated former Bayer Leverkusen midfielder in Michael Ballack, who never really found his best form in a Chelsea shirt after his move from Bayern Munich in 2006. Patience has been shown, and more is required for now. It still feels too soon for sweeping statements and loud conclusions.

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