Signs of life finally for Wirtz, but Liverpool still need more from playmaker

Florian Wirtz produced one of his most impressive displays in a Liverpool shirt last weekend at Brentford, but Andoni Iraola needs his No 10 to keep sparkling with the Reds now facing three crucial tests at home that will tell us a lot more about where his game is at.

The headlines and chatter after Liverpool's 3-0 recent loss to Man City at Anfield, though, would not have made pretty reading for the club's £116m playmaker, with former Reds captain Jamie Carragher even going as far as suggesting the German needed to be axed from the team after another underwhelming showing against the Premier League leaders.

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"I'm just sorry to say this Florian Wirtz signing it's not working and it hasn't worked so far and Gravenberch should not be sitting on the bench when Wirtz is playing for Liverpool" said the Sky Sports pundit. "It's not harsh to be having a go at Wirtz right now, he's got to do so much more.

"I struggle to think of one game where he's won Liverpool the game or he's been the man. He was brought in to be a star of the Premier League. I felt he could be the Kevin De Bruyne that at times got Man City over the line.

"Wirtz has been here for 55-60 games, it's a lot and I don't see it changing. Wirtz where he's almost nailed on that he plays every week in that No 10 position it has to stop.

"I think he needs to come out of the team, I said that last time out and I'm going to say it again."

But if seven days is a long time in politics, it is an eternity in football and Wirtz will head into the club's upcoming run of tricky fixtures with a spring in his step having shone in Liverpool's recent trio of wins at LASK and Brentford and home to Villarreal.

The 23-year-old pulled the strings in the visitors' 6-3 Champions League trouncing in Austria, creating the second of Bradley Barcola's hat-trick with a delightful inside pass in a tight space, before again producing the goods in west London to help the Reds came from behind and inflict Brentford's first defeat of the season on Saturday.

Iraola's side were still trailing the Bees' ten men when Wirtz's vision unlocked the home defence for Victor Munoz's well-taken leveller just past the hour mark, one of nine chances he created from open play in the contest - the most in a Premier League game since 2021 and the most in an away match for more than 15 years - while in total he has set up a league-high 20 openings this season.

And Wirtz then followed that up with a match-turning second-half cameo in Tuesday's 4-3 home win against Villarreal in which he scored his first goal since April - meaning he now has a goal involvement in three straight matches - as Liverpool made it five victories in their last six games in all competitions.

What is just as encouraging, though, as far as Iraola is concerned is the understanding Wirtz and his fellow £100m+ recruit from Paris Saint-Germain appeared to be developing on the lefthand side of the Reds' forward line in those victories as he looks to make his side more potent in attack.

"He's coming in from two very good games, he played very well LASK away, he helped the team a lot in possession, out of possession," was Iraola's assessment of Wirtz's last two performances.

"I hope we can keep him there. You ask me every day basically about him, we analyse and over scrutinise everything, but when he does well also, it's fair to say."

The Liverpool boss sounded exasperated he was still being quizzed about Wirtz and of course he would much prefer not to be, but when your big-money No 10 contributed just seven goals and ten assists in 49 games across all competitions in his debut campaign on Merseyside, then he has been in the game long enough to realise the outside noise will not simply go away after a few eye-catching showings.

For one thing, it is too small a sample size to start making definitive judgements on the Germany international, while the match conditions in both those encounters undoubtedly suited him coming against a LASK side making their Champions League debut and a Bees team forced to play the whole of the second half with only ten men following Yehor Yarmolyuk's straight red card.

The Ukrainian's needless dismissal in first-half stoppage time was undoubtedly a factor in allowing Wirtz to boss the second period at the Gtech as the hosts tired, allowing the playmaker more space and time in which to operate and so create most of those nine chances.

However, a deeper dive into the stats show that of those nine openings, six came after Brentford went down to ten men, while none were actually classified as 'big chances' by Opta as the Reds largely struggled to break down the home side, symptomatic really of the team's attacking struggles as a whole, where they rank only 16th for xG in the Premier League so far this season.

And it is a similar story with those Premier-League high 20 openings Wirtz has created this campaign, with again none being deemed high-quality by Opta.

This is the catch 22 for Iraola as he prepares for potentially season-defining games at Anfield against high-flying Brighton & Hove Albion and champions Arsenal in the league - where Liverpool have not won since April 25 and have just 11 victories there in their last 21 games in total - separated by a League Cup clash with free-scoring Chelsea, over the course of the next 10 days.

On the one hand, the Basque will be desperate for Wirtz to keep performing in these trio of high-octane clashes - all live on Sky Sports - that are likely to be tight affairs in which your big-money playmaker is hoped to make the difference.

But on the other hand, can he risk playing the No 10 against opponents with players who can really hurt the Reds on the counter, as we saw at St James' Park on the opening weekend of the season, when Newcastle United twice punished Liverpool with fast breaks through the middle? And can he actually count on him to show up in matches where he will have less time on the ball and space with which to make those decisive passes?

This was, of course, the very dilemma Iraola's predecessor had following Wirtz's arrival at the start of last season when Arne Slot changed the makeup of his title-winning midfield to accommodate the German in the 'hole', with disastrous consequences, before reverting back to the previous campaign's successful 4-3-3 diamond formation with Gravenberch as a sole No 6 and shunting the new man out to the left.

Iraola never played with 'specialist' No 6s in front of his back four at Bournemouth, though, instead trusting Tyler Adams and Alex Scott to get up and down the pitch and has so far resisted employing Gravenberch as a holding midfielder, meaning he is unlikely to follow suit.

But finding that midfield balance is integral to the success, or otherwise, of Wirtz's Reds career, as Sky Sports News' Liverpool reporter Vinny O'Connor told the latest Sky Sports Premier League podcast:

"If it's not working then he'll [Iraola] take a big decision [to drop Wirtz] and make that call ultimately. It is to do with the players around him and it is finding that balance in midfield and he's not necessarily helped I don't think by the fact that Liverpool don't have an out-and-out destroyer who can sit in front of that back four.

"At the moment, Gravenberch has played that role, but we've seen again at times this season how he wants to drive forward as well and play a part higher up the pitch. MacAllister, obviously that suits him better and [Dominik] Szoboszlai isn't someone who naturally sits and holds in midfield either.

"So there's a dynamic in that midfield - who does what and when and when you've got Wirtz in there, that leaves Liverpool at times completely wide open. We've seen how they've been caught on the counterattack, so solving that problem is going to be key to getting the best out of Wirtz

"At the moment, you've got that solidity behind him and at times Wirtz has played even further forward than a No 10, almost as like a second striker off [Alexander] Isak and if their relationship thrives and you've got the pace on the wings from the likes of Barcola and the threat that he provides as well occupying defenders, maybe that opens up more spaces for Wirtz, gives him more time on the ball, more time to be creative and ultimately make the kind of impact that we're expecting from him."

Playing in a team that is regularly winning and bossing games will undoubtedly massively help Wirtz going forward, something he has not had the luxury of much since joining the club and Iraola will hope that is the now case in these huge games coming up.