Liverpool Are Not Doing Florian Wirtz Any Favours

Liverpool are not playing to Florian Wirtz's strengths. Or those of many of their summer signings, come to think of it, but let's deal with the German first.

Which three words spring to mind when you think of Florian Wirtz? ‘Waste of money’ will be the immediate reaction of people whose opinion is not worth your time.

If that hot take is too extreme to carry any merit, it would certainly lift the mood around Liverpool if the 22-year-old started delivering goals or assists. As recently evaluated on here, a price tag of the size that brought him to Anfield outweighs what is a reasonable expectation for a Premier League rookie of his age.

Back to our three Wirtz words. A wordcloud taken from analysis of the young German would have ‘between’, ‘the’ and ‘lines’ prominently displayed, for he does his best work in this somewhat random patch of pitch.

Searching his name with that phrase brings up numerous articles and videos with titles like ‘Florian Wirtz Masterclass’. Receiving the ball behind the opposition’s midfield but in front of their defence then finding a forward is what makes the former Leverkusen man tick.

Wirtz has been in such spaces in his new red shirt. A Sky Sports piece published early in the campaign which primarily highlighted his running power gave examples of his off-ball movement. He drags opposing players out of position to create space in which his teammates can either flourish or potentially find him with a pass.

A more recent article via the same source shared a troubling statistic. The issue is one of omission, with Wirtz not featuring in the Premier League’s top 10 players for times they were available to receive the ball between the lines.

It’s impossible to know Wirtz’s figure without access to the full data set. He wouldn’t be half way to second place even if he happens to be 11th man on the list, though, which is concerning given his ability in this field.

Investigating this will not be easy. There is no published statistics for passes received between the lines. It remains worth reviewing a few different numbers to see how this is hampering Liverpool. Solving this tactical issue could dissolve some of the attacking problems plaguing the team.

Progressive passes feel like a good starting point. Despite their definition being beyond laborious¹, they clearly relate to moving the ball forward. A glance at the figures suggests this could explain everything, as Wirtz received at least 11.6 per 90 minutes in the last two Bundesliga seasons whereas he is at 6.7 this term.

However, as a proportion of the total passes received the drop is far less; he is at 16.7 per cent for Liverpool after being 17.8 in the preceding two campaigns. Wirtz is receiving the ball less as he is no longer the main man of his team’s attack but progressive passes are finding him at broadly the same rate.

Using Stats Zone, we can see the location of the passes Wirtz has received in his Premier League career. It doesn’t instinctively feel like too many found him between the lines. There are plenty which were played from wide rather than vertically through the opposition midfield.

Another way we can consider the German’s record is to look at which players passed to him in open play. For Leverkusen, the easiest way to establish this is to look at pre-assists on FBRef. There were four players who enabled him to set up at least three goals: Granit Xhaka (five), Exequiel Palacios (four), Edmond Tapsoba and Kerem Demirbay (both three).

If you were asked to name central midfielders or centre-backs for Leverkusen on Pointless - my dream episode - then you aren’t getting much joy with this quartet. It’s easy to imagine them playing a ball through midfield into Wirtz’s feet in the final third.

A previous newsletter which looked at his potent relationship with Patrik Schick included clips of the 18 goals that Wirtz assisted for the lanky striker. This one, against Bayern Munich, is a perfect example of what he can do; Demirbay plays the ball to him between the lines, before he works space to create the chance.

This has to be approached in a different way with Liverpool, thanks to the lack of assists in league or Europe. We can apply the same logic by looking at who has played an open play pass to Wirtz before he sets up shot. Here are the players in question.

Reviewing clips of the chances does not throw up many passes between lines, if any. You could parse that from the identity of the players involved in many cases.

It feels like Dominik Szoboszlai might provide a good example. One of his pre-assist passes was a cross, another was a small triangle with shooter Alexis Mac Allister on the edge of the Bournemouth box. The remaining example was pinged from right-back to left-wing against Arsenal; a beautiful pass, just not what we’re looking for here.

A couple of the others were part of counter attacks, with a few more showing Wirtz receiving the ball in the box before playing it back towards a teammate who shoots. Those latter examples don’t feel like the best use of his talent.

There are three which hinted at the potential of the £100m man playing between the lines. A quicker pass to him at Burnley might have done the job but he had to drop deeper to get the ball when things got messy. The driving run he went on towards the flat back five needs to be seen more frequently.

Two instances in the space of about a minute against Atlético Madrid also showed degrees of promise. Wirtz was technically between the lines for the first, though does it count when out on the left flank rather than central?

For the second, the number seven wasn’t quite behind the midfield line when receiving the ball. As at Turf Moor he carried the ball forward well, except that this time his efforts resulted in an Opta-defined big chance. It is this sort of move which we need to see more often from Wirtz.

Maybe he’s being too tightly marked for this to happen, his reputation drawing attention that his output has yet to justify. If that is the case, it’s up to Arne Slot to solve this problem. Having Wirtz pull out to the left wing isn’t sending him to the most valuable space he could occupy. That’s to be found between the lines, so start finding him there, Liverpool.

1. “Completed passes that move the ball towards the opponent’s goal line at least 10 yards from its furthest point in the last six passes, or any completed pass into the penalty area. Excludes passes from the defending 40% of the pitch.” Told you it was laborious.