Earlier in the week, Daily Mail journalist Lewis Steele reported that Liverpool are not measuring Florian Wirtz’s progress on goals and assists. If we are to take United legend Gary Neville literally, the German also fails to measure what Liverpool actually measure their giant investment on.
First to Liverpool’s assessment of the 22-year-old: “Liverpool see the main goal for Wirtz this season as a physical goal. Can they build him up to Premier League standards? Can they build up his basic form so that he can play at high intensity three times a week?”, the English journalist wrote.
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After Sunday’s game against Manchester City, United legend and football talker Neville highlighted Wirtz’s physical condition and form as a major weakness. So big that it has to be called a problem. 11 games without scoring in the Premier League is not just a situation of bad luck and what Julian Nagelsmann thought was the Liverpool players’ inability to exploit Wirtz on the pitch.
-Wirtz is a problem, Neville begins on his own podcast.
-Let’s just say it like it is. There is a problem. He costs over £100 million and to be fair, I said a few weeks ago that [Milos] Kerkez looked like a little boy out there. Today I thought Wirtz looked like a little boy. That cannot be the case. We’ve been tiptoeing around him for a few months, around the fact that he’s young, he’s coming to a new country, but he costs over £100 million. You’ve got to get up soon,” Neville growls.
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Which recognizes the talent, but not the performances in the first eleven games in the world’s toughest league.
-He obviously has something. He’s a very good player, he’s technically fantastic, but he’s been hit hard today by Matheus Nunes and others. He’s been thrown around the pitch and didn’t deliver on the quality side either, so his performance was a big concern,” concludes Neville, who is concerned on Liverpool’s behalf.
