Brentford v Liverpool - Premier League 2026/27
Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images
Florian Wirtz clocked up assists in back-to-back Liverpool matches on Saturday as he rolled a perfectly weighted ball through for Victor Munoz to score.
Munoz did most of the hard work to bring the Reds level against Brentford, but it will still be another tick over in the assists column for Wirtz, who now has three for the season.
Having put in a much more assured performance at the Gtech Community Stadium, the German is nicely biting back after pointed criticism from Jamie Carragher, amongst others, last weekend. Amazingly, Wirtz created nine chances for Liverpool in West London, and in doing so he shot right to the top of that particular metric in this season’s Premier League.
Liverpool come from behind to beat 9-man Brentford! What were your main takeaways from the game? 🤔 We were clinging on a bit at the end…
Big win. Could easily have gone wrong
Unlucky *
I think the win was important. Liverpool won twice this week while clearly not at their best - you can’t knock that.
Wirtz has created the most in the Premier League
As Opta pointed out on X after the game, Wirtz’s nine chances created in a single Premier League match was the most any player had managed in the competition since Liverpool’s own Sadio Mane made 10 opportunities in a game against Burnley in January 2021.
Although there were not any statistically ‘big’ chances amongst the nine, Wirtz was still creative on the ball and key in Liverpool coming back into the game.
In his previous six Premier League appearances of the season combined, the 23-year-old laid on 11 chances for his teammates, with Saturday’s haul shooting him right up the list.
He has jumped ahead of Brighton veteran Pascal Gross, who has created 18 opportunities, and now tops the table with a round 20.
Rayan Cherki has received plenty of praise for his performances at Man City, in contrast to Wirtz at Liverpool, and has been seen by many as by far the better signing of the two players bought in 2025. But Cherki sits eighth on this list, although he does match Wirtz’s average of 3.2 chances created per 90 minutes.
9 – Florian Wirtz's nine chances created from open play against Brentford is the most by a player in a Premier League game since Sadio Mané v Burnley in January 2021 (9) and the most by a player in an away game since Samir Nasri v Spurs in August 2011 (10).
Progress. pic.twitter.com/xyMIQP9y5p
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 17, 2026
READ MORE: Andoni Iraola explains why Dominik Szoboszlai was taken off against Brentford, ‘not another injury’
Wirtz display should keep Carragher at bay
Just as he did with Mohamed Salah last season, Carragher has now put himself as the premier critic of Florian Wirtz, having been quite clear in his stance that he thinks the Germany international is not delivering for Liverpool.
Though Carragher is yet to comment on the improvement seen on Saturday afternoon, he will surely concede that this is much more like it from Wirtz.
The former Liverpool centre-back is unlikely to be completely won over by these numbers, given the parameters for deciding what is and what is not a ‘chance created,’ but it is a sign that Wirtz is moving in the right direction again.
He did tangibly affect the result with a key assist when Liverpool badly needed somebody creative to step up, and that is likely to keep Carragher’s criticism at bay for another week.
There will still be supporters who are rightly demanding more from Wirtz, but with Liverpool looking for a hero at the Gtech, he did as much as anyone to turn the tide. The hope will be that this can now turn into a more permanent occurrence. But even if it does not, the £116m man has kept the haters quiet this weekend.