Florian Wirtz's Pressing is Elite. It Will Need to Improve at Liverpool

Florian Wirtz was in the top three per cent of pressers in the Bundesliga and Champions League this season. Liverpool have players who break the scales

Liverpool have made a bid of up to €130m (including add-ons) for Florian Wirtz. The previous edition of this newsletter focussed on his remarkable on-ball statistics. His defensive work is arguably even better.

Florian Wirtz, Shohei Ohtani and the 50-50s

The 22-year-old was part of a Leverkusen side which averaged 8.2 high turnovers per match in 2024/25, meaning that is how many open play possession sequences they started within 40m of the opposition goal. As Arne Slot’s side recorded 8.1 a game, Wirtz should be able to keep pace.

He could even become the Reds’ key man for recovering possession in the final third. With 1.3 regains per 90 minutes in that zone, Wirtz was comfortably above Liverpool’s leading players; Luis Díaz and Curtis Jones averaged 0.8 each. Indeed, nobody with as much playing time in the Bundesliga or Premier League topped the German international’s recovery rate in opposition defensive thirds.

A recent issue of The Transfer Flow further highlighted his off-ball prowess. “The rich clubs vying for his services will love how consistent he is across competitions, with his numbers not dropping off at all between Bundesliga and UEFA Champions League play,” wrote Kim McCauley, before sharing a radar to prove the point.

Eyes naturally wander to the edges of the chart that are touched by coloured marks. There are two for which Wirtz is in at least the 97th percentile of his peers in the two most important competitions: Dribble & Carry OBV [On-ball value] and PAdj [possession adjusted] Pressures.

His Bundesliga figure of 27.36 for the latter metric was surpassed by a top percentile 32.56 per 90 in the Champions League. Liverpool saw evidence of this when Wirtz recorded the most pressures by any player in Leverkusen’s 4-0 defeat at Anfield.

His total of 29 that night equates to 30.8 once we factor in that the visitors edged the possession with 52.9 per cent. Wirtz will have pressed with even greater intensity elsewhere to reach his 32.6 average. Based on several key Liverpool players’ figures for 2024/25, he will have to lift his level even higher if he joins the club.