Germany Watch: Is Florian Wirtz starting to silence his critics at Liverpool?

Florian Wirtz finally netted his first goal for Liverpool in the Reds’ 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Anfield — a moment that was expected to have come far sooner on Merseyside after the Germany international chose Arne Slot’s side over Bayern Munich, joining for a total package in the range of €150m. To date, the 22-year-old attacker has tallied a goal and six assists from a total of twenty-three appearances across all competitions, which included his first ever match for Liverpool by virtue of the Community Shield loss to Crystal Palace at Wembley back in August.

With the air of anticipation that came with Wirtz’s blockbuster move to Liverpool during the summer transfer, combined with how long he’d been courted by Bayern, he came under a great deal of criticism with how long it’s taken him to start producing goal involvement statistics. While he had a brace of assists in Liverpool’s Champions League win over Eintracht Frankfurt back in October, it took Wirtz until match day fourteen in the Premier League to register his first assist, which came in the 1-1 draw with Sunderland in the form of a deflected shot off of a Sunderland defender — it would have been hist first goal had it not been for the shot heading off frame prior to the touch from the Sunderland player.

Optically, Wirtz’s lack of goals and assists were made perceivably more frustrating with how long it’s also taken Alexander Isak to gain some momentum before suffering a significant leg injury in Liverpool’s 2-1 win at Tottenham. Additionally, Wirtz’s baron run coincided with Liverpool’s incredibly poor run of form where they lost six out of seven Premier League matches from late September to early November, which also included the shock loss to PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League and crashing out of the EFL Cup to Crystal Palace at Anfield.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Even with his low number of goals and assists so far this season, Wirtz has been a positive presence on the pitch for Liverpool, and he seems to be growing more and more in confidence. Despite only having one goal and six assists so far, he has created a total of 31 chances in the Premier League and a total of 17 in the Champions League (StatMuse). This can be boiled down to missing some of the shots that he creates himself, but also his teammates missing chances that he tees up for them. To add to that, he creates roughly 3.1 chances per 90 minutes and he is at the top end of the Premier Leagues table for chance creation. Even when he’s not racking up goals and assists, he’s making his presence felt in Slot’s attack.

His match ratings are also following a pattern as of late, which is a testament to his growing confidence the more minutes he’s able to get and the more he’s able to linkup with the likes of Hugo Ekitike, Cody Gakpo, Dominik Szoboszlai, Federico Chiesa, etc. His chemistry with Mohamed Salah is taking a bit of a hiatus while the latter is with Egypt at the African Cup of Nations in Morocco and Slot had also benched Salah just before he left to join up with the Egyptian squad.

So far this season in the Premier League, he has an average rating of 6.85 (out of 10), but his last three matches have been 7.4, 9.1 and 9.3 from the wins against Brighton and Hove Albion, Tottenham, and Wolves. Prior to the string of solid performances, his highest ratings had been 7.6 in the win at West Ham United in November and 7.0 in the 2-1 loss to Crystal Palace at the end of September.

From a Bayern and Germany perspective, there is certainly a mixture of bitterness and partial schadenfreude. Bayern were quite certain they were going to wind up getting Wirtz in the summer transfer window, and even Thomas Müller has recently said he still feels Bayern would have been the better destination for him, but they wound up getting Luis Diaz from Liverpool, who has been absolutely flying for Bayern so far this season. The Colombian has tallied thirteen goals and seven assists from twenty-two appearances across all competitions and has shown absolutely no signs of struggling to adapt to life with a new club in a new league in a different country – it’s been a seamless transition. With that said, Germany fans should be excited that Liverpool are starting to see the Wirtz they were used to seeing in the Bundesliga with Bayer Leverkusen several months out from the start of the World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…