Andoni Iraola appears to have found a fix for Florian Wirtz. The German's form should skyrocket from here.
No one would argue that Liverpool have seen the best of Florian Wirtz. Nowhere near it, in fact. The German arrived as one of the most decisive players in world football and yet looks timid out there.
That's been the case for over a year now and it's been incredibly disappointing. Wirtz was supposed to be the one who took over from Mohamed Salah as the 'leader' of this attack but instead he takes a backseat.
Though, we really don't feel it's entirely his fault. Wirtz has been asked to play a different role than he was signed from, moving out of a very fluid Bayer Leverkusen attack and into the most static forward line in world football.
There is essentially no movement in Liverpool's attack. It takes away Wirtz's greatest skill - ruthlessly attacking pockets of space.
Only, Andoni Iraola may have fixed that.
Fixing Florian Wirtz
Wirtz’s game at Leverkusen was as part of two players operating behind a striker. That formed what was essentially a three-man attack in the middle, with no real set positions to stick to. Two holding midfielders afforded him plenty of space, while wing-backs stretched play.
At Liverpool, Wirtz has been the no.10. He’s then had wingers on either side cutting in, a striker in front of him, and at least one (typically two) midfielders running into his space.
There’s nowhere to move out wide, nowhere to move forward, and his starting position has typically been one where he can only move backwards. That’s led to Wirtz dropping deep to get the ball. Worse, there hasn’t been much movement and little dragging of defenders. In fact, Wirtz is typically the one doing that - which means he can’t then attack the space he’s left.
The last two Liverpool matches have seen a change of plan. Iraola has gone more 4-3-3 than 4-2-3-1 with Wirtz essentially playing as one of two ‘8s’ in front of a sitting midfielder.
Given the amount of possession that Liverpool enjoy, that means the two midfielders end up playing as the central pair flanking the striker. That’s vaguely the role Wirtz had at Leverkusen and it’s a big, big step forward in generating movement for Liverpool.
Those two midfielders have the entire middle of the pitch to roam and without rigid positions - they can interchange, drift, and each drag defenders about. And with no set no.10 constantly in the middle, wingers have more space to move inside and the striker can move backwards - suddenly, everyone is moving around and there’s space to attack.
The starting position is suddenly different, too, as Wirtz is moving towards goal rather than sitting in the pocket with his back to goal.
It’s not a shock, then, that Wirtz did look more like his old self against LASK. He was floating around the pitch, finding pockets of space that were left by the extra movement and making things happen.
Liverpool have 64 per cent possession against LASK. For comparison, they had 69 per cent against Nottingham Forest earlier this season.
Wirtz had 80 touches last night and 72 in that Forest fixture - vaguely similar but the ones he had in Austria were far more valuable. He more than tripled his touches in the penalty area from 2 to 7 and had three times as many shots and created three times as many chances.
Yes, LASK are not as good as Forest but the point is that Liverpool found a way to get Wirtz the ball in better areas. He finally had some space to play in and the result was the kind of performance you’d expect from him.