Frimpong and Wirtz: Transferring a Potent Pair to Liverpool

Liverpool have signed two players who already worked well together. How good were Frimpong and Wirtz for Leverkusen? How will they work for the Reds?

Liverpool have done something this summer which they hadn’t for 11 years. They have signed multiple players from one club in a transfer window.

Kopites will hope Jeremie Frimpong and Florian Wirtz are rather more successful than the trio of Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Dejan Lovren proved to be for Brendan Rodgers’ mis-firing Reds. The former and latter had their moments under Jürgen Klopp but the new boys need to deliver more, record signing Wirtz especially.

As inconsistent as the Saints’ trio were for Liverpool, they had linked up well the season before. Lovren even headed home a Lallana corner when Southampton won 1-0 at Anfield in September 2013, with the midfielder also linking up for five league goals with Lambert in 2013/14. Importing an existing relationship should bring benefits.

This statement stands a better chance of being true when a combination has been particularly potent. It appears the Reds are in luck.

Leverkusen had 13 pairings of players who linked up for at least nine chances across Bundesliga and Champions League matches this season. Sorting them by xG per shot ranks the link-ups between Frimpong and Wirtz as the fourth and fifth best, with one of those players present in seven of the nine other duos in the top 11.

Maybe their combination will grow even more powerful for Liverpool, notwithstanding Arne Slot may tweak how they are deployed tactically. The Reds boss had eight pairings generate at least 0.141 xG per shot across nine-plus chances in 2024/25, with seven of the duos topping the 0.160 that Wirtz to Frimpong offered. Putting very good players on a better team makes brighter sparks of creativity fly.

In theory, anyway. They may not play as closely together as they have in the past. It took until their 149th and final Leverkusen game together for Florian to assist Jeremie for a goal (see below), so don’t expect an immediate repeat for the Reds.

Nonetheless, Slot will be percolating ideas. He’s already seen how they can link up earlier in moves at Anfield.

Frimpong and Wirtz will not remember Liverpool’s ground fondly. Leverkusen lost 4-0, joining Ipswich, Tottenham and West Ham in conceding at least four times to Slot’s Reds. WhoScored had the pair among the visitors’ three worst performing starters that night; SofaScore put them in the four best. You can’t trust player assessment algorithms, can you?

Liverpool’s head coach probably doesn’t. He will have paid close attention to the pair, though. Slot may also have watched the game back more recently as a scouting exercise. If he has, he will have seen the pair combining to fashion two opportunities for Victor Boniface, including the first shot of the match.

That move saw Frimpong use Exequiel Palacios to make a triangle with Wirtz, before passing in front of the Reds’ backline to find Leverkusen’s number 22. The less said about his shot, the better.

A curiosity of the examples from this match is that they represent half of the four open play chances that our intrepid duo created for Boniface in 2024/25. While that total sounds small, only two other threesomes at Leverkusen matched it with only 10 more recording three shots; just 12 combos this season were above this trio’s total at Anfield alone, in other words.

Back to the match. Using Granit Xhaka for a longer triangle deeper in the field helped the now-Liverpool pair combine mid-way through the first half. With the defence more stretched, their passing took Kostas Tsimikas out of the equation. This enabled Frimpong to play a cross in front of Virgil van Dijk into the Reds’ box. A move of this nature down the right flank feels very Liverpool.

The Reds’ combination data for this season proves as much. Like Leverkusen, Liverpool didn’t have a three-player sequence which topped four chances created, though the shots they produced were of higher value.

Xabi Alonso’s best combined trio for expected goals was ‘Edmond Tapsoba → Florian Wirtz → Patrik Schick’, with the three chances they mustered worth 1.23 xG. As recently investigated on here, Wirtz’s link-up with the Czech forward was red hot throughout their time together.

Leverkusen didn’t have many leading shot sequence threesomes which didn’t feature at least one of the players they have since sold to Liverpool. However, they could have been more productive. The four opportunities the duo made for Boniface totalled just 0.23 expected goals, with the four they made for others only adding another 0.36 xG.

Shots that had Wirtz and Frimpong providing the pre-assist and key pass were worth very little. They were far more productive when they played the final two stages of a move rather than the penultimate two.

This should improve under Slot’s tutelage. The second Boniface effort at Anfield was one of only two of the above eight shots that was hit closer than 17 yards from goal. Focussing on chance quality was one of the main improvements the new head coach made to the Reds of 2024/25.

Here’s a good example. The sequence of ‘Luis Díaz → Mohamed Salah → Cody Gakpo’ generated 1.17 expected goals through just two open play chances, both of which led to goals from no more than five yards out. One of them was against Leverkusen, so Frimpong and Wirtz can look away now.

Even better was ‘Mohamed Salah → Dominik Szoboszlai → Luis Díaz’, with four chances which totted up to 2.26 expected goals. After efforts went begging against Brentford and Fulham, the trio put Tottenham and Arsenal to the sword late in the season. Take that, London.

What do you notice on these pitch maps? Triangles on the right of the pitch. Passes to the flank were returned inside for a vital delivery into the box. The combination of Frimpong and Wirtz have already shown they can do this at Anfield. We should see it there many more times in the years ahead too.

Here’s a bonus to finish, as the clips didn’t fit within the flow of the article: Frimpong’s six assists for Wirtz. Enjoy!

This next one barely shows the assist but it’s worth watching for the goal. You’ll be in the ballpark if you think of Salah’s 2021/22 Goal of the Season against Manchester City. Wirtz explains it all too (though you’ll probably need to put subtitles on).