Always Diagnosing What's Wrong With A Wirtz
It's my life sentence.
When Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz back in June, we Chicago-based Reds could make a lot of jokes about "a Wirtz we can finally like!" That group might only be like, 12 strong, but we didn't miss the chance. That's still the case, but it hasn't been nearly as smooth of a ride as one might think a $150M+ player should provide. But is anything with a Wirtz?
Wirtz's Liverpool career has stuttered at the beginning, with no goals and no assists in six appearances (five starts). Perhaps the bigger worry for him and Liverpool is that he hasn't looked a constant threat, or even a presence. His first couple games saw him really adjusting to the pace of the Premier League, losing the ball and turning it over as tackles and challenges came flying at him a little quicker than he was used to in Germany. It happens. The problem is that those first queasy steps in the opening couple of games might have made his teammates a little more cautious in feeding him the ball, which is the main problem.
A club doesn't buy Florian Wirtz without the intention of building the entire attack around him, or to be more accurate, through him (we'll get to that). Wirtz's main skill is popping up in tight space around the opponent's box, or just inside it, and being able to take in a pass in a phone booth and fashion something out of it. A team needs to basically force-feed him the ball, often times when it doesn't seem prudent. Look are deceiving when it comes to Wirtz.
The problem for Wirtz, though not necessarily Liverpool, is they have so many other attacking options that haven't orbited around Wirtz for the previous few seasons, like they did at Leverkusen. Those options need to be forced the ball at times, be it Mo Salah or letting Cody Gakpo dribble in from the left to shoot or Ryan Gravenberch's newfound spiciness going forward. That's hardly the complete list, either. This is how Liverpool have worked for a while, and changing it is a bigger matter than just saying they want to do so.
Consequently, all of Wirtz's "receiving" numbers are way down from last season in the Bundesliga. Both his passes received (62.8 per 90 to 38.4) and his progressive passes received (11.8 to 6.7) have been cut nearly in half this season. Same goes for his touches in the attacking third (45.1 to 28.6). He's just not getting the same opportunities.
Which is easy to see on his maps. Against Arsenal:
Against Atletico Madrid:
Against Palace:
When compared with his best match this season, against Burnley, who admittedly made it easier to get the ball to him:
So many more touches on either side of the 18, which is where he does his best work.
Some of it isn't on Wirtz. Listening to some analysis after the Palace match Saturday, one commentator was struck how often Wirtz showed for the ball in between lines, in enough space to get the ball, but the pass went elsewhere. Here are some instances from the Palace match. These passes don't get made:
This isn't the easiest look for Connor Bradley, but the ball over the top to Salah that he chose wasn't any easier.
Again, Gakpo dribbling into the box, or around the corner of it, is an established path of attack for Liverpool over a few years now. Hitting this pass at speed isn't, so it's understandable why Gakpo doesn't make it. But it's the one Wirtz needs.
Here's one they did find:
Isak finds Wirtz, they work a one-two, and then another one, which ended in Isak's best chance of the game that he sent wide. Perhaps it's not all that surprising that Isak, also new to things and not conditioned to find the wide players as much, looked for Wirtz when he got the chance.
The bonus for Liverpool and Wirtz is that this is all solvable. The only problem is it's solved by time and reps, and the pressure from outside observers, as well as the sprint-nature of the top of the Premier League now, doesn't afford a lot of time and reps before minds get made up. Wirtz will come alive when the team around him starts hitting passes to him that they just haven't been conditioned to hit until this season. If Wirtz was bought to make him the attacking fulcrum, there really isn't a build-up to that. He either is or he isn't. We'll see how quickly Liverpool get there.