Man City 3-0 Liverpool: Match Review
The Sky Sports pundit assessed the performance of Florian Wirtz in Liverpool’s 3-0 loss against Man City in the Premier League.
Gary Neville believes that Florian Wirtz will soon need to start justifying his price tag after Liverpool dropped out of the Premier League title race.
The Reds’ 3-0 loss to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium was a fifth league defeat in six matches. It leaves the reigning English champions eight points behind leaders Arsenal - a gap that many feel will be too big to make up despite only 11 games being made.
But Wirtz has endured a slow start to his Reds career. He’s still to record a goal or an assist in the Premier League. He returned to the starting line-up against City but, like many of his team-mates, struggled to get to grips with the game.
What’s been said
And former Manchester United defender Neville reckons that Wirtz is a ‘problem’ that Liverpool need to quickly resolve. Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, he said: “I thought Wirtz, in particular, it was a bad day for him. We’ve been tiptoeing around him, haven’t we, for a few months around the fact that he’s young, he’s come to a new country. You’re going to have to stand up soon. He’s obviously got something. He’s a really good player, technically fantastic but he’s been mauled out there by Nunes and by others.
“He’s been chucked around the pitch and didn’t deliver in the quality side of things. His performance was a real worry. Physically, I’d be really worried if I was Arne Slot looking at that team. There were a few of them who look like they an’t run. I always think when you go on a losing streak, you start to doubt everything. That is wrong because there are some great players out there with great attitudes so it’s not time to throw the baby out of the bathwater.
“But Arne Slot’s going to need this next week, reflect, look at what he’s got and sets up post-international break and think about how he fixes the problems both going forward and in defence.
‘Looked like a little boy’
“Wirtz is a problem, let’s be clear. Let’s call it as it is. It’s an issue. To be fair, I said a few weeks ago about [Milos] Kerkez that he looks like a little boy out there. Wirtz looked like a little boy and that can’t be the case. He’s a German international of great standing and he looks well short in respect of what you’d expect in a top physical match.
“They have got to get him up to speed and got to get that sort of tenacity into him, that little bit of something that means he will get into form. It means that will have to stick with him and persist but they’ve got to wind a way to get the best out of him.”
Continue Reading