Florian Wirtz playing for Germany.
Photo by Marvin Ibo Guengoer – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images
Florian Wirtz has come in for a lot of stick at Liverpool, and Leon Osman believes Everton actually had a very similar case years ago.
Liverpool splashed out £116 million to sign Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen in 2025, but the German has not lived up to expectations in English football so far.
There has already been some talk about him leaving the club, and a sale this early really would underline just how poor he’s been for the Reds.
Wirtz’s form was actually a topic of conversation for Leon Osman, Tony Bellew and Liam Kiziltan on the latest Outside the Box Pod episode – and Osman reckons Everton actually have had their own version of the player.
Celtic are eyeing David Moyes with his Everton contract expiring next year… thoughts? 🤔
Credit: Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)
It does seem like the perfect next step, and could see him doing really really well
Hopefully it won’t take too long for a sale to happen!
Spot on Tom imagine Moyes under owners who invest seriously in the squad and then we could judge how good or bad Moyes is
Leon Osman suggests Per Kroldrup was Everton’s Florian Wirtz
Back in the summer of 2005, Everton made a move for Denmark international defender Per Kroldrup, spending around £5 million to bring him to Goodison Park.
There were high hopes for Kroldrup, who had impressed in the previous season for Udinese, helping the Italian side get into the Champions League.
But the move was a complete disaster, with Kroldrup actually only playing two games for the Toffees before moving on in the mid-season transfer window.
Asked by Tony Bellew if he could think of a player who came in at Everton who everyone thought would be special but just couldn’t adapt to the Premier League, Osman said: “The one who always pops in my mind is Per Kroldrup.
“We signed him for £5m, which was a big price back then. We quickly realised he was a ball-playing centre-half 15 years before it became a real thing. Moyesy and Everton needed ball-winning centre halves, and Moysey was chucking the ball to him, telling him to jump, and he just couldn’t get his timing right, it’s like he never headed the ball before.
“It was like he’d never headed the ball before. One of his first games he was up against John Carew. We had a lot of expectations. No doubt he was a good player, he went back to Fiorentina and had a stellar career. But he just wasn’t cut out for the Premier League.
Of course, Kroldrup’s price was a drop in the ocean compared to Wirtz’s. But given how badly his stint went, it was still obviously a waste of money by the Toffees.
Injury problems were also a big factor behind Kroldrup’s failed stint at Everton, with the defender not actually making his debut until December. And that debut was then a real shocker for Kroldrup who was bullied throughout by Aston Villa, with Everton losing 4-0.
It simply boiled down to Kroldrup not suiting the more physical English game, having excelled in the more tactical and technical Italian top-flight.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has outshone Wirtz
Sometimes, spending huge amounts of money on players does not work out, and Wirtz really hasn’t lived up to his price tag or hype since signing for Liverpool.
And at the moment, Everton probably have a better player in the form of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who was a fraction of Wirtz’s price at about £28 million from Chelsea.
Even Jamie Carragher said last season that Dewsbury-Hall had been better than Wirtz, and even when the Englishman hasn’t been at his best, he’s still been a big player for the Toffees.