Florian Wirtz's Leverkusen link-up which outdid Firmino and Salah

Florian Wirtz has over twice as many assists for Patrick Schick as anyone else. Can Liverpool replicate this powerful partnership for the German international?

Sports fans can be obsessed by records. Facts, trivia, stats. Who scored the most goals this season? Who provided the most assists? Why does every OptaJoe tweet need to include the phrase “only Mohamed Salah”?

As interesting as these nuggets can be, it can be more insightful to see how players combine. No team relies solely on their superstar, even if it happens to be only Salah. It’s partly why the previous edition of this newsletter looked at Liverpool’s top combinations for creating chances in the league this season.

A poster on Reddit recently shared a table of the leading pairings for creating goals in Europe’s big five leagues since 2009/10. It’s littered with players you’d expect to see, though not even Lionel Messi features in both the scorer and assister columns.

Liverpool’s best combos in this period topped out at six. Sadio Mané providing this many goals for Salah in 2017/18 feels obvious, Luis Suárez doing likewise for Raheem Sterling four years earlier rather less so.

The top divisions across England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain saw two pairings deliver seven goals in 2024/25. Jacob Murphy teed up Alexander Isak for a septet of strikes, as did Florian Wirtz for Patrik Schick.

Sorry. Did you say Florian Wirtz? Oh, cool. Now I’m interested.

Digging around on FBRef thickens the plot nicely. The likely Liverpool new boy has set up Schick for 18 of the 69 assists he has in their database. Wirtz doesn’t have more than seven for anyone else.

The Czech forward is his number one guy. They are ready for the floor.

The only duo with more than 18 for the Reds since the start of the Jürgen Klopp era is Roberto Firmino to Salah, with 21 of Bobby’s 71 assists feeding the Egyptian.

Nobody needs reminding about how well that two-thirds of Liverpool’s legendary front three linked up. For Wirtz to be in touching distance of the assist total despite only playing a shade over a third as many minutes with Schick as Firmino did with Salah makes their relationship worthy of further investigation.

So, here it is. There’s a clip of each goal, with the YouTube videos set to show you only the move in question (you will need to double click on the videos on the website to then be able to play them). Who is going to become Wirtz’s new Schick at Anfield?

We’ll begin with the most pertinent example for Liverpool, as the pre-assist was provided by Jeremie Frimpong. He crossed, Wirtz pulled back, Schick fired home from just inside the box (versus Freiburg in December 2024).

This was unique in the manner in which Wirtz set up his most frequent chance converter. As you would expect with a 6’ 3” target man, there were examples of crosses which Schick headed home. Wirtz has delivered him an assist from either side of the box in this way (Stuttgart, October 2020 & Freiburg, December 2024).

These weren’t his only productive crosses for Schick. There were two more from the right side; one arced through the air towards the back post which was chested home (Union Berlin), another flashed low to the near post (Heidenheim, both November 2024).

The latter occurred in a broadly similar position as two assists Wirtz dished up for Schick against Stuttgart, one in each of the Bundesliga meetings in 2021/22. The goal scoring strikes were hit from a central position around the edge of the six-yard boxes in these instances.

Our intrepid duo combined three times for goals struck around the edge of the penalty box. The Dortmund effort (September 2021) was the only one classified as a counter attack by Opta, though all three were break moves. Schalke 04 (April 2021) and Freiburg (December 2024) were the other sides to suffer in this manner.

Wirtz’s passes for these goals hinted at what is perhaps his greatest strength. The German international topped the Bundesliga chart for through-balls in each of the last two seasons. Since summer 2021, only Rodrigo De Paul averages more per 90 minutes in the big leagues.

Whether these five assists for Schick were deemed through-balls by Opta or not, they split opposition defences very pleasingly.

Arminia Bielefeld, October 2021

Bayern Munich, October 2021

Greuther Fürth, December 2021

Bochum, November 2024

Borussia Mönchengladbach, January 2025

While not a through ball in the traditional sense, the final goal Wirtz set up for Schick (Köln, February 2025) also featured a pass between defenders into the penalty area. It just happened to be on the left hand side, when a terrific take-down of a long pass preceded a sharp sprint to beat a man, creating space for the pass.

Football being the procession of random events that it is, Wirtz has inevitably picked up a couple of freebie assists. The first (Augsburg, August 2021) did at least see him carry the ball up field before Schick pinched it as it ran loose.

The second (Mainz, February 2023) was a rebound in a goalmouth scramble. Chalk it up to luck.

Zapruder film enthusiasts will be studying that one to figure out what the hell happened. I think the ball hit Wirtz after going back and to the left off the goalkeeper?

His red-hot form with Schick this season was unsustainable. Driblab noted the following in March:

They’ve connected on 10 key passes, 7 of which have ended in goals. However, this combination has only generated 1.56 xA, an average of 0.16 xA per key pass. Their xA difference of +5.42 is the largest in the five major leagues.

That might be so, but the clips here show the pair combining in all manner of ways for great opportunities. Just one of the Bundesliga goals was from a chance of less than 0.1 expected goals in value, with the average up at 0.28.

Watching these clips, it’s easy to picture a certain Alexander Isak getting on the end of Wirtz’s deliveries. Even if signing the Swede may remain a pipedream for Kopites, with so much invested in the Leverkusen midfielder Liverpool need a forward who aligns with his strengths. He’ll certainly miss Schick.