Liverpool manager Arne Slot has publicly rejected Ars\u00e8ne Wenger\u2019s recent appraisal of Florian Wirtz and set out a measured defence of the midfielder\u2019s situation at the club.<\/p>\n
With Liverpool struggling as a wider unit, Wirtz has contributed just three assists in 15 games across all competitions for his new side, having been deployed in a number of positions on Slot\u2019s search for his best role in the team. Criticism of Wirtz, and Liverpool\u2019s transfer business as a whole, has not been uncommon this season.<\/p>\n
Wenger\u2019s full assessment was quoted widely. \u201cWirtz had the chance between [Bayern] Munich and Liverpool,\u201d Wenger said on beIN SPORTS . \u201cHe said to Liverpool, \u2018I\u2019ll come to you if I play number 10\u2014I do not want to play wide.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get him, Liverpool said OK. So they destroyed their midfield, because their midfield was [Ryan] Gravenberch, [Alexis] Mac Allister and [Dominik] Szoboszlai.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo play Wirtz, they took Szoboszlai out, and then what did they do against Aston Villa? They went back to their normal midfield of last year. And [against Real Madrid], they\u2019ve brought Wirtz back but he will play on the side. Because the manager has said [to Wirtz], \u2018If you want to play a game, you have to play wide, because I don\u2019t want to disturb the midfield.\u2019 That will be interesting to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot, speaking before Sunday\u2019s Premier League meeting with Manchester City, declined to engage with that line of attack. \u201cEveryone has a right to his own opinion,\u201d Slot responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have five or six very good midfielders who can all play together but they need to play more together to get the best out of every single player. Florian needs time to adapt to his teammates and teammates need time to adapt to him. Now he played off the left but I can tell you, if it is not now it is tomorrow, he will have great performances as a midfielder for Liverpool as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely has the talent for it, but it\u2019s not only about one player. It\u2019s also about the team you are playing in. What I can say about Florian is that since Xabi Alonso came in [at Bayer Leverkusen] he was mainly used in a 3-4-3 system as an inverted winger, where before that he mainly played as a 10. In the national team he plays as an inverted winger as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me the only challenge I have is making sure he gets in those positions, as an inverted winger or as a 10, in and around the 18-yard box where his teammates need to find him with the right timing, because then he will always produce special things. He does this for the national team, he did it for Leverkusen and he\u2019s already done that for us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wirtz\u2019s father also offered a calm perspective after ten league games. “My thought from the very beginning was to wait and see how the first 10 league games went,” he told ZDF (via BILD ). “We and Florian are perfectly happy with that.<\/p>\n
“The incredible speed [of the Premier League], the back and forth… That was very impressive for the first few games. The distances covered and the speed were significantly greater [than the Bundesliga]. But the style of play is sometimes enormously different because it doesn\u2019t seem as organised, but rather more focused on pace.<\/p>\n
“It was exciting for him to join a team that had certainly grown and had added one or two new players besides himself. And all of them were of a corresponding quality. All of that was quite exciting for him.<\/p>\n
“I think the league table clearly shows that there\u2019s still room for improvement in this football machine. But the mechanics will sort that out. I hope he\u2019s such a good player that he can adapt to the demands there and that he enjoys it just as much as he did in the Bundesliga.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot rejects Wenger’s critique and insists Wirtz will adapt; the manager wants midfield cohesion. UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1081,299,1215],"class_list":["post-4324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-arne-slot","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324","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=4324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}