J\u00fcrgen Klopp has pushed back strongly against Jamie Carragher\u2019s criticism of Florian Wirtz, after the former Liverpool defender questioned whether the midfielder\u2019s current role is suited to him.<\/p>\n
Carragher\u2019s assessment followed another underwhelming display against Newcastle United, where Wirtz struggled to make an impact. Speaking with Gary Neville, he argued that the Germany international does not look well placed in the side and suggested the player is being asked to perform in a position that does not suit his strengths. He also said Wirtz is not showing the level of output expected of a player carrying such a high valuation.<\/p>\n
Klopp, however, offered a very different view. The Germany manager and former Liverpool coach made clear that he does not share the concern surrounding the player\u2019s quality, and he took aim at the reaction he sees from pundits in England.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a soccer player, he\u2019s [Wirtz] beyond reproach\u2014in my eyes and in everyone else\u2019s, too,\u201d Liverpool\u2019s Premier League -winning former coach told Sky Germany on Friday. \u201cBut Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville, and so on\u2014they\u2019re, of course, always the first to get nervous in England.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Klopp did not present Wirtz as exempt from the demands of the game. He stressed that any attacking player in his system must contribute to the counter-pressing, pointing to Shinji Kagawa as an example of a No 10 who worked without the ball at a high level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to play for us, you have to be part of the counter-pressing,\u201d Klopp warned. \u201cAnd I played alongside Shinji Kagawa at the 10 [attacking midfield]. He never won a single tackle and was still one of the best counter-pressing players I\u2019ve ever had. It\u2019s not about physicality. It\u2019s about wanting to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klopp also argued that Wirtz\u2019s best position is through the middle, rather than wide on the left, and said the responsibility lies with the coach to place talent where it can perform best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Klopp defended Wirtz, rejected Carragher\u2019s view, and stressed that pressing matters most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1836,59,180],"class_list":["post-18805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}