Liverpool staff maintained ‘absolute’ faith in one player despite stinging external criticism
Liverpool staff are understood to have maintained ‘absolute’ faith in one of last year’s signings despite substantial criticism from outside the club.
Last June, the Reds broke their transfer record to sign Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen in a £116m deal (The Athletic), although the playmaker had to wait until our final match of 2025 to register his first goal in a red shirt on the day of his 23rd appearance.
Since that strike against Wolves over the festive period, the German has added two more goals, and his last six matches have seen him register five goal contributions in total, with the 22-year-old finally seeing tangible rewards for all of his eye-catching play.
Liverpool staff maintained full faith in Wirtz to come good
David Lynch on Substack has outlined how Liverpool chiefs’ faith in our number 7 never wavered despite his surprisingly long wait for a first Reds goal, and despite some harsh external observations.
He wrote: ‘Liverpool’s recruitment staff never doubted this moment [Wirtz’s upturn in form] would arrive, with their faith in the player absolute given the extent of the background checks that went into identifying him as a signing worth breaking the bank for.
‘Though their research was less exhaustive, the belief of supporters never wavered either, largely because they could always see Wirtz’s quality even if it only came in fits and starts in his early days at Anfield.
‘The harshest criticisms have largely come from the outside, where mitigation such as a dysfunctional team and the difficulty of adapting from the Bundesliga were ignored in favour of snappy broadsides.’
Wirtz is now beginning to silence his critics
Most Liverpool supporters who’ve watched Wirtz play throughout the season would recognise and acknowledge that he was still doing plenty right even before that breakthrough goal against Wolves.
It didn’t spare him criticism from elsewhere, with former Reds midfielder Didi Hamann alleging last month that the 22-year-old was ‘being made out to be better than he actually is’, while Steve Nicol was calling for our number 7 to be dropped as early as September.
Thankfully, Arne Slot prevailed with the Germany international and is now being rewarded with a flurry of goals and assists, and the player has also bulked up as a result of a weight-gain programme to help him cope better with the physicality of the Premier League.
When Liverpool signed Wirtz last summer, they were doing so for five years, not five months. We realise that his transfer fee brought with it an expectation for immediate deliverance, but some of the criticism towards our number 7 has been way over the top.
Those who were prepared to be patient with the German and keep faith in him to come good are now being vindicated, and if he can extrapolate his recent form over the course of the season, his early critics will surely have been well and truly silenced.
You can watch Slot’s full post-Barnsley press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
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