Since he joined Liverpool at the start of the 2025/26 season, I don’t think there has been a single player in the Premier League who has been under the microscope more than Florian Wirtz. Every single pundit seems to have a strong opinion on Wirtz, who was a multi-time Bundesliga Player of the Season at Bayer Leverkusen before he even turned 23 years old, leading Leverkusen to indisputably the greatest season in Bundesliga history as his team went undefeated in 2023/24 to break up Bayern Munich’s record run of consecutive titles. (And oh by the way, his coach, Xabi Alonso, has not achieved a single thing since then.)
Wirtz, though, is facing a heavy weight of expectation at Anfield, and the price tag of his transfer, an initial 100 million pounds, certainly didn’t help matters. But the thing is, based on what Wirtz had accomplished in the Bundesliga and his age, 100 million pounds was not an unreasonable fee by any means. After all, the older and far less accomplished Sandro Tonali just went to Tottenham Hotspur from Newcastle United for exactly 100 million pounds.
Maybe it’s because people threw around the add-on fees, though, more likely, it’s because Wirtz set expectations so high after being so good in the Bundesliga for, despite his youth, multiple seasons. But Wirtz became the main target for criticism in the 2025/26 season as Liverpool struggled badly under Arne Slot, barely cracking the Champions League places just one season after they convincingly won the Premier League (without Wirtz, of course).
Florian Wirtz isn’t showing improvement
So far in the 2026/27 Premier League season, Wirtz hasn’t really been much better. After a poor World Cup for tournament flops Germany, Wirtz has not scored and has assisted just once in five league starts, similarly struggling to impact games in the final third, just like the 2025/26 campaign. Wirtz is averaging 1.8 key passes, 1.2 dribbles completed, and just 0.8 fouls drawn per game. Those are respectable numbers, but they are nowhere near what a 100 million pound attacking midfielder should be achieving at Liverpool.
All of this has made pundits like Jamie Carragher start to wonder if this is who he is, but I think it’s far more reasonable and productive to change the narrative a bit. Now, that might not actually be reassuring for Liverpool fans, because the reality is that Florian Wirtz may just be “like this” for Liverpool. And it’s not because Florian Wirtz is a fraud, because you can’t play as well as he did in the Bundesliga with great team success as the main man, multiple individual honors of the highest order, multiple seasons with double-digit goals AND assists, and multiple seasons with more than two dribbles completed AND key passes per game without being a wonderful player.
But the way Liverpool play and clearly want to play based on the managers they have hired after Jurgen Klopp in Arne Slot and Andoni Iraola – instead of former player and Wirtz’s old manager Xabi Alonso – is they want to keep the Heavy Metal Football going. They want to play quick, in transitions, and they don’t want to have possession in the final third the way Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, and Arsenal do. They want to be different than those clubs to win, which is the right strategy, because it follows the old Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid vs. Barcelona textbook of wanting to be the best by attacking the weaknesses of the other teams and being different.
Barcelona or Bayern Munich would have fit better
The thing is, Wirtz had the option of joining Barcelona or Bayern Munich instead of Liverpool, and he probably should have chosen those other clubs. Because while Wirtz does succeed in some hybrid of a transition game like what Leverkusen or Hansi Flick’s Barcelona play, he doesn’t fit the way Liverpool play which is more about playing in the middle to wide.
Wirtz is a player who benefits from the defense getting the ball to him as a pivot quickly, and then he can slow the game down and toy with teams, finding the tight spaces in the middle and interchanging with other players. Besides Cody Gakpo, Liverpool don’t have the personnel for that, and most of their players, like Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, and Dominik Szoboszlai, don’t play that style of football.
Barcelona would be smitten with a player like Wirtz with his touches, flicks, passing accuracy, one-twos, and quality in and around the box. Bayern Munich also love to dominate possession and play in this way, which is conducive to Wirtz, whereas Wirtz feels like a fish out of water at Liverpool, either playing too wide or too deep because the Reds just don’t have the personnel to get open and facilitate Wirtz’s movement and playing style, whereas the quick transitions force him to be more physical and in wide areas than delicately manipulating the football through players in the middle.
Liverpool may never see the best of Wirtz, and it has been enough time to make a judgment that this Wirtz is nowhere near the same Wirtz we all saw for years, dominating the Bundesliga. And it’s not even about fit in the Premier League, because he probably would be amazing at Spurs, Chelsea, or Man City. Liverpool are different, though. They have never had a 10 or any player like Wirtz before, and when they did have a facilitator in the middle to create for inverted wingers, it was a totally different flavor of player in Roberto Firmino as a center forward. We may not see the best of Wirtz again until the original wrong is corrected and he is sold to either Barca or Bayern, his true fits in European football at the elite level (not that they need him with the attacking midfield depth and talent both have).
Purveyor of footy since the 90s. Favor the Premier League and old school Serie A with a touch of Bundesliga. More than a touch. Professional writer for 20 years, covering every sport but now focused on the Premier League and world football. You won’t be able to guess my favorite team.