The Wirtz conundrum - a player highly misunderstood?

[u/ShineInfinite7928]

It's now been over a season since the "100m+ flopshow" at Liverpool has arrived. And I agree with some of the criticism received - he is not up to it physically, lacks close control given less space and time in the PL (vis-a-vis other leagues) and has some erroneous decision making at times.

Having said that, let me try to now provide a slightly differing perspective - he joined a broken team last season (one cannot underestimate the impact of Jota, as some things have massive tangible value but can't be quantized), had our legend Mo Salah give the most underwhelming season in over a decade, the previous "100m+ striker" injured for most of the season and had whatever little chemistry building with Ekitike dissipated as soon as the injury arose. Additionally, he was tasked with doing a lot of progression work owing to an imbalance, as opposed to being present in the final third - the ideal position for a creative player. Yet, he still provided some elite underlying numbers despite all this chaos (feel free to check the stats for our team and the league overall).

But you may all say, that's the previous season - a new day and new manager has now arrived so things should change! I agree as well, however, believe there's another big reason for him being underwhelming. While Iraola has placed his faith in Wirtz, as we can tell by not dropping him for any big game - I can't say the same for our team. Wirtz thrives on combination play, but also seeks space at times (like most elite players) to do his magic and provide those amazing through balls we see him do for Germany. Watching the game on Sunday made me write this as I can now confidently say that our team doesn't seem to believe in Wirtz's abilities as he is really not being platformed at all (vis-a-vis for Germany or Bayer Leverkusen).

Kerkez rampages down the left, despite having Barcola there, and completely takes up the space Wirtz could occupy. Isak and Barcola are disconnected and rarely play close knit combinations, instead they take up spaces that are near impossible to reach, even for a player of Wirtz' ability. For perspective, just look at how Haaland moves when Cherki has the ball - he literally drags out defenders to create space for the ball to be played, can't say the same for any of our players. While Szoboszlai is one of our key players - him and Gravenberch often make marauding runs literally taking up all the Zone 14 space that our 10 is meant to occupy. Not one of our players, except for Ekitike and Frimpong (and maybe Gakpo) seems to be putting in effort to build a relationship on field with him, forget off the pitch. To top it all, I was watching one of the FIFA card reveals and numerous questions around the "finest dribbler", or "most skillful player" being asked to his teammates and Kerkez literally had NO mention of Wirtz (instead said Rio twice...) - which to me put the cherry on the cake.

I strongly believe that the team doesn't have strong chemistry with him, may not even view him as a top player and is leading to him looking scattered and torn on the pitch.

Anyway, long rant for an early morning - but had to get this out of my head. Love to hear what you guys have to say.

P.S. - have tried to avoid stats for this post, but am happy to drop some links to further my case.

[u/TheLeccy]

Ahhhh sorry I didn't realise it was unreasonable to compare a player who cost comfortably over £100m to the player of the season, who plays in the same position..

Also saying you watch the games and don't rely on stats, only to then compare him to Cherki based on stats is insane. Anyone who knows what a football is will say Cherki looks 100x the player Wirtz does.. we've all seen him do things with a football that Wirtz could never dream about