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Florian Wirtz’s Liverpool Career: Misunderstood And Misused At Anfield 1
Florian Wirtz’s Liverpool career has been anything but the standard many expected, and to understand why, it helps to remember what he was at Bayer Leverkusen. In the 2023/24 season, Leverkusen went on a remarkable run, going unbeaten in both the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal and achieving the rare domestic double.
The season was seen as the coming-out party for the then 20-year-old midfielder, who scored 11 goals and produced 11 assists on their title-winning run, which resulted in him being voted German Player of the Year.
He followed that in the 2024/25 campaign by maintaining the same goal contribution statistics, which became the main attraction for a transfer war between top European clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Liverpool for his signature.
The Start At Liverpool
It was Liverpool who finally got their man, for £116 million, as part of a star-studded recruitment class in the 2025 summer transfer window, part of the club’s efforts to retain the title and make a claim in all domestic and European competitions.
Arne Slot, at the time of the 22-year-old’s arrival, called him an artist on the field and challenged him to aspire to be one of the standout greats at Anfield, calling him a wildcard profile who could elevate Liverpool’s game.
However, pundits raised concerns about his physicality for the Premier League, warning that his free-flowing approach in the Bundesliga would be caught out and that he needed to adapt his game to suit it.
The free-roaming attacking playmaker role he was accustomed to under manager Xabi Alonso in a 3-4-3 setup would not translate easily, as players who dwell on the ball in possession are vulnerable to being caught out.
Another issue was his price tag, as £116m for a 22-year-old felt too much given his relatively developing pathway in the first team, and the expectation to hit the ground running as quickly as possible, in order to calm nerves early in his Liverpool career.
He would now be seen as the one to take over the mantle from the ageing icons at the club and usher in a new era of Anfield glory.
The 2025/26 Season And Its Struggles
Despite making his official debut for the club in the 2025 Community Shield, in a losing effort on penalties, his first league game came in a 4-2 home win against Bournemouth in the Premier League.
They didn’t see Florian Wirtz in his element, but hoped that during the season he would become the key piece alongside Mohamed Salah, Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and Cody Gakpo as the lynchpin of their attack.
But the performances kept fluctuating between average and mediocre, as he went his first 13 Premier League games without a goal involvement or impacting games as he used to in his Leverkusen days.
His first assist came in a 5-1 demolition of Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League in late October, but he still struggled to adapt to the team. He ended 2025 with two assists and a goal against Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers, but his issues were glaring from the outset.
The playing style that won Liverpool the Premier League was significantly altered, as the free-flowing, heavy offence that would have suited Wirtz a season prior gave way to a slow, pragmatic approach, and what didn’t help was the club’s inconsistent performances, not to mention the off-field issues involving some of the experienced talent, which was not suitable for a healthy dressing room.
His form did not attract much praise, as it came and went across multiple games, and he finished the 2025/26 Premier League season with five goals and three assists, which was very underwhelming for a player of his calibre and talent, though much of the blame was not on his side, as the tumultuous season was marred by inconsistency and internal clashes between players and the coaching hierarchy.
Wirtz The Talent
Florian Wirtz is a right-footed, 177cm attacking player with a good weaker left foot.
His wide range of skill, technique and football IQ makes him a very good attacking midfielder, who can also play on either side of the wing in a 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 or 3-4-3, the latter being the shape he spent his time in under Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen, where his ability was on display.
He’s ambidextrous, but doesn’t use his left foot unless he wants to escape heavy pressure and take one-time shots. His spatial awareness is among the elite, because he likes to roam free based on his position on the field, particularly in the middle of the pitch.
In the middle, he likes to find good combinations with his strikers, similar to his connections with Victor Boniface and Patrik Schick at Bayer, but can also find a pass to break enemy lines and reach players such as Cody Gakpo and Hugo Ekitike from the wings and pockets of space, to which he has fair amount of chemistry between them.
He doesn’t like to dribble a lot, but does have a carrying threat to his game.
He liked it a lot when an attacking full-back, in the case of Alejandro Grimaldo, overlapped him and gave him chances to cut inside and attack with his right foot during his time at Bayer Leverkusen.
But at Liverpool, he seems to be left on the short end of the stick, as the average attacking ability of Miloš Kerkez limits his inverting ability, and his lack of defensive awareness makes it harder for the team to attack without fear of getting caught out.
What’s Gone Wrong
At Liverpool, he seems like the odd man out over the last two years, which does not help him, given his somewhat uneasy 2025/26 season, in which he struggled to adapt and fully integrate into the team amid the turmoil around the club at the time.
It also doesn’t help his cause that he was part of a recruitment class in the 2025 summer transfer window where expectations were high for him to light up the Premier League and take another step in his development, as the 22-year-old at the time was seen as a new focal point of the new era at Liverpool.
Not to mention, because of his stagnant form, many pundits have tried to see the positive side of his game by displaying various advenced metrics to cover up the poor goal and assist return in his Liverpool career, giving him grace given his relatively young age and the famous assertion that time is a factor in judging him, but they have clarified that the 2026/27 season should be where the pieces must fall into place.
Finally, the playing style, which changed before his arrival, didn’t work when Arne Slot decided to make Liverpool a more possession-stable team that managed risk, and felt lethargic in attack as well as porous in defence, with players out of form as well.
Eerie Comparisons
There are a few players who have struggled similarly, failing to find their form or fulfill their potential, and it seems that if things don’t change, he might follow suit.
The early 2010s saw Fernando Torres in this category. Although not positionally similar, Torres at Liverpool was an absolute gem of a signing in 2007 and went on to produce a very good goalscoring output before his departure to Chelsea in 2011, which brought about the worst form of his career, having been at his absolute peak at Merseyside.
João Félix followed a similar path when he became Atlético Madrid’s most expensive signing, and his stye under Diego Simeone was at most hit and miss, so Atletico Madrid cut their losses after he fell short of expectations and is now becoming a journeyman before reaching the age of 30.
Someone of a similar ilk, in terms of redefining which goals and assists matter in football, was Zinedine Zidane. His story is very different from Wirtz’s, but they do share the same issue when it came to how football was seen. Zidane made football an art and a science and why his name can be mentioned amongst the greats.
Primarily neither a goalscorer nor an efficient assister, his game was more about flair and panache, backed up with a trophy cabinet beyond his wildest dreams, and people admired his contribution on the field but did not regard his goal involvements too much, to a fault.
And these comparisons might seem a bit of a stretch, but the latter found a way to make his mark on the field in a winning contribution, whilst Fernando Torres and Joao Felix were misunderstood and left the clubs, they were destined to be the future off.
What Needs To Happen
For Wirtz, his international career with Germany feels more or less like a silver lining for him to find his mojo and rhythm and return to the club, but time is running out for him to make a great statement, although he is still young and hasn’t reached his peak. The 2026/27 season is seen as his sophomore year at the club, and no excuse will be accepted for him not performing and that is the thing, he is not producing what made him exceptional at Bayer Leverkusen.
Andoni Iraola, under his tenure, has to not only find a way to get Liverpool back to its heavy-metal approach and mirror the successes of Jürgen Klopp, but also acclimatise Florian Wirtz to his winning vision and make him feel like part of the process.
If not, then it brings a lot of questions to what the recruitment staff were thinking when signing a player that doesn’t fit the profile of the team and makes it worse on the long run.
Luckily for him, recruitment is now trying to be better, with wingers such as Bradley Barcola and Víctor Muñoz arriving, therefore allowing him to stay within the middle of the pitch and contribute more to the final phase of attack, but that remains to be seen if indeed it will get the best out of him or be an obstruction in their attacking presence.
But make no mistake, his price tag, reputation and grace period will all be under the microscope in this 2026/27 campaign, and his performances will be key in him finding the confidence to revert to the young player who was poised to be one of the next big things in the football market, or if the struggles continue, a big cataclysmic failure on the young man’s career.
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