The form of Florian Wirtz is starting to come under scrutiny - and the stats suggest that Liverpool should be very worried indeed.
In most regards, Sunday’s performance was wholly satisfactory for Liverpool. Andoni Iraola manufactured a 1-0 win over his former side Bournemouth and a potential banana skin was swerved. Iraola remains undefeated as Liverpool manager and Alexander Isak continued his hot streak in front of goal. But one issue remains unresolved – Florian Wirtz.
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Signed for £116m last summer, the midfielder is still searching in vain for the extraordinary from he displayed with Bayer Leverkusen. Wirtz was signed to be a superstar. At the Vitality Stadium, he was a passenger, hooked after 71 minutes having contributed close to nothing. The pitchforks are being sharpened.
Operating in the number 10 role, Wirtz is meant to be Liverpool’s beating creative heart. Instead, his struggles seem to be the primary reason that their attack has yet to catch fire, with a relatively meagre seven goals in their first five matches. Iraola told the media that he felt the German international was “playing much better,” but there was little hard evidence of that – so just how concerned do Liverpool need to be about one of their most expensive acquisitions?
Florian Wirtz is ‘neat and tidy’ – but is that enough?
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Despite taking him off in favour of youngster Trey Nyoni on Sunday, Iraola was keen to be kind about Wirtz’s performance down on the Dorset coast.
“I think we improved. Florian has helped us also to improve,” the Liverpool head coach told Sky Sports. "Second half he was playing much better, he was finding better spots to receive and turn.”
Not that he did all that much in those spots. Wirtz did technically create three shooting chances during his time on the field, but those opportunities only amounted to 0.05 expected assists. He had two shots on goal but failed to score yet again, leaving him with the sum total of zero goals and one assist from his six matches in the 2026/27 season. Given how productive he was for Bayer Leverkusen, his lack of impact is both surprising and worrying.
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher was less generous in his assessment during the post-match broadcast, and it’s difficult to disagree with his rather scathing assessment of Wirtz’s recent work.
“When you watch Wirtz, he's neat and tidy, he keeps possession, there's things that you like,” Carragher said. “He gets out of a tight situation where you're normally expecting your player to lose the ball.
“I don't see how he's going to hurt you. It's just neat and tidy. And in some way, the price tag for that type of player should be half of what Liverpool have paid… Even if he improves a bit and gets there, it's still not what Liverpool thought they were getting.”
Carragher also raised the point that in persisting with Wirtz at number 10, Iraola was denying Liverpool the chance to use Dominik Szoboszlai in the same role. The Hungarian already has three goals to his name this season and has exceeded Wirtz by most key statistical measures – Szoboszlai’s xG is half as high again, his xA is twice as high, his passing more accurate.
Wirtz, in his defence, has been neat and tidy enough. He isn’t making dire errors or giving the ball away. The technical quality which made him a standout in the Bundesliga remains evident. The penetration, however, seems to have disappeared. He is neither creating chances nor scoring them. Indeed, he’s scarcely getting into the opposing penalty area in the first place.
The worrying stats which suggest that Liverpool have a problem
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One look at Wirtz’s heat maps so far this season highlights one of the biggest issues – while he’s broadly playing in the same way that he did for Leverkusen, drifting around the attacking third with a focus on the channels down the left flank, he’s getting inside the penalty area far less frequently, and is far less incisive when he does get there.
He’s actually shooting at a similar rate – 2.4 shots on goal per game so far this season compared to 2.5 in his final season with Leverkusen – and he’s generating key passes at much the same speed as well. The quality of the finishing and final ball, however, have diminished drastically.
Against Bournemouth on Sunday, Wirtz only attempted two passes into the penalty area, neither of which was successful. While he was keeping the ball and turning out of trouble well enough, he simply wasn’t doing anything much with possession having secured it.
Key to the downturn has been his unwillingness to run at defenders. A huge number of his forays into the box in the Bundesliga came through his dribbling and his knack for turning defenders inside out on his way. With Leverkusen, he got into dangerous positions consistently by beating his man – now, however, he’s barely trying.
Wirtz has totalled 1.2 successful dribbles per match so far in the Premier League this season at a success rate of 46%. With Leverkusen, he averaged over 2.5 successful dribbles per game in his last two full years, at a 51% success rate. Cutting his number of attempted carries in half (and then some) has drastically reduced the impact that he’s having on matches.
The result is that Wirtz does the ‘neat and tidy’ parts and then does nothing more. He passes it sideways instead of taking on the high-risk through ball. He knocks it to a team-mate instead of getting his head down and blasting into the box. And Liverpool, as a consequence, have a passenger in the heart of their attack.
Wirtz, at his best, played piratical, risk-taking football. At Liverpool, he seems to have lost his edge. There’s a parallel to be drawn with Jack Grealish before and after his move to Manchester City, although Grealish still put up numbers for his first couple of seasons. Much could be forgiven if Wirtz was scoring and providing, but his 15 total goal involvements in all competitions last season represented a steep decline from 30 in 2024/25 and 37 in 2023/24.
The fact that he seems to be unwilling to try many of the more daring runs and passes which defined his success at Leverkusen suggests that confidence plays a key role. Perhaps this is a case of a player who just needs to get his mojo back – but that’s one of the few excuses still available to him.
In his first season at Anfield, it could be correctly pointed out that he was still a very young man playing with a new team, in a new system, in a new country. But a year on, those excuses are wearing a little thin, and there’s a very strong case that Szoboszlai is a far more effective player in the number 10 role right now.
Wirtz’s leash is getting shorter. His price tag and prior performances demand more goals, more creativity, and more exciting football. If that doesn’t come soon, one wonders how long Iraola’s patience will hold.