Rudi V\u00f6ller has attributed Florian Wirtz\u2019s tentative opening at Liverpool to how the playmaker is being used, rather than any loss of quality. Liverpool have lost three on the bounce in all competitions and Wirtz is yet to record a single goal contribution in a competitive fixture for his new club. He was named on the bench for their 2\u20131 defeat at Chelsea on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Wirtz will now join the German national team for October World Cup qualifiers, likely adding to his 33 caps. \u201cWe\u2019re very happy that he [Wirtz] is with us for 10 days now. I am convinced he will deliver two wonderful international matches,” V\u00f6ller said of Liverpool\u2019s struggling playmaker on Sky90.<\/p>\n
V\u00f6ller knows Wirtz from their time at Bayer Leverkusen: he served as Leverkusen\u2019s sporting director between 2005 and 2022 and later managed the national team on an interim basis. He played 90 times for his country, won the World Cup, and spent much of his playing career away from his homeland. That experience informs his view on adaptation and tactical fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big difference is: at Bayer Leverkusen, despite the individual quality of the other players, he was always looked for,\u201d V\u00f6ller said. \u201cPlayers like Granit Xhaka, Alejandro Grimaldo or Robert Andrich certainly ran the game. But the moment Florian made himself available, he always got the ball. Even as a young guy, he was already the chief.” <\/p>\n
There is statistical evidence supporting V\u00f6ller\u2019s assessment. Wirtz\u2019s touch count per 90 minutes has dropped to 59.1 in the Premier League from 80.3 in the Bundesliga last season and 85.3 in 2023\u201324. The playmaker recorded 22 league goal contributions during his final two campaigns in Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cI deliberately watched some Liverpool games with him: he does an incredible amount of work, runs a lot, makes many sprints, and also goes deep, V\u00f6ller continued. \u201cBut he isn\u2019t played to in the way he was used to at Leverkusen or with the national team. That\u2019s something that has to be developed over weeks and months.\u201d<\/p>\n
V\u00f6ller is backing the “extraordinary” Wirtz to eventually find his groove at Anfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
V\u00f6ller says Wirtz’s slow Liverpool start is tactical; touch counts, benching and form are examined..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,175],"tags":[1081,1019],"class_list":["post-3629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-liverpool","tag-adaptation","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629","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=3629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}