Why A Chelsea Flop Might Invigorate Liverpool Next Season
No, not Mohamed Salah. Florian Wirtz's hero Marko Marin had a brief stint with Chelsea and his inspiration could be put to be good use by Arne Slot.
Do you know who Florian Wirtz’s boyhood hero was? It was an almost-but-not-quite-one-time-teammate of Mohamed Salah.
Like the Egyptian, Marko Marin was one of numerous talented players who passed through Chelsea without leaving much of an impression early in the last decade.
He joined the Blues in 2012/13 but had begun a succession of loan moves which took in Sevilla, Fiorentina, Anderlecht and Trabzonspor by the time Salah signed the following season. Maybe they had a laugh over coffee in Florence about the madness of football midway through 2014/15 when Marin’s temporary move ended as Salah arrived to play for I Viola.
Regardless, the German international had already caught the eye of a young Wirtz prior to his move to Stamford Bridge. "My great idol was Marko Marin. I had a Werder Bremen shirt with his name on it," the Liverpool target told the Bundesliga website. "I was fascinated by his dribbles and his goal threat. In that respect, I could identify with him."
Marin’s big league career had ended by the time the advanced data age got underway. Even so, you can see what Wirtz is talking about via basic statistics. His average of 4.7 completed dribbles per 90 minutes in the 2010/11 Bundesliga is elite; posting that these days puts you among very few players past Lionel Messi.
Wirtz hasn’t hit these pro-rata heights (in a full season), though he completed more take-ons than any other player in Germany’s top division this season. It was one of five important metrics in which he passed the benchmark of 50, as covered recently here:
Anyone who has seen Wirtz play will not be surprised to learn he was inspired by one of the game’s top dribblers from when he was around seven or eight years old. When you look at the take-on data for him, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, you get an idea about how Liverpool might attack next season.
A recent post on CIES Football Observatory used Impect data for six aspects of play to determine the most influential footballers across 60 leagues in 2024/25. Salah was the top man overall, with Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold leading the centre-back and full-back categories respectively. Wirtz was the premier attacking midfielder, with his take-on score joint-best among his positional peers, alongside Désiré Doué.
Teammate Frimpong was eighth in that category among full-backs, one place lower than his overall standing for his position. Kerkez didn’t fare quite so well, albeit his dribbling strength comes more through carrying the ball progressively rather than going past a direct opponent by taking him on.
Productive running in possession can also be measured by Opta’s shot and chance creating carries. This is when a player dribbles at least five metres with the ball before unleashing a goal attempt or teeing up a teammate for an effort. Let’s call these productive carries to cover both types of outcome.
Kerkez’ averaged 0.51 of them per 90 minutes this season; 0.16 led to his shots, 0.35 for chances created. This is more than Andy Robertson (0.33) and Kostas Tsimikas (0.11) offered between them, though below the Premier League average for players with a minimum of 900 minutes (0.58). Liverpool should see productive carries more regularly on their left flank next season.
As they might on their right. Conor Bradley (0.84 per 90) and Alexander-Arnold (0.83) had near identical figures, with the former leaning more heavily towards shots whereas the latter had an even split. Both were behind the 1.01 that Frimpong posted for Leverkusen.
Clearly the Reds’ new boy was more wing-back than full-back under Xabi Alonso. However, none of the 20 Premier League players who logged at least Frimpong’s 2,322 minutes and a higher average of productive carries per 90 was a defender in any sense.
The only club with three such players was Liverpool, who had two the season before. Salah (1.87) was only behind Cole Palmer (2.00) and Matheus Cunha (1.97), with Luis DÃaz (1.61) and Dominik Szoboszlai (1.08) also carrying productively on a regular basis.
While he didn’t meet our arbitrary ‘Frimpong time’ minutes cut off, Cody Gakpo (1.76) was ranked 11th among footballers with at least his level of playing time. Diogo Jota’s 1.13 average meant Chelsea were the only side to have more men with 900+ minutes at north of 0.97 productive carries per 90, with six to the Reds’ five.
Another team with six such players were the Feyenoord side of 2023/24. That Yakubah Minteh averaged 2.34 for them before recording 1.22 in his debut Brighton campaign suggests this art is easier in the Eredivisie, as you’d expect.
But it also shows how important productive carries are to an Arne Slot side once he has had more than a year to shape it on the field and via recruitment. As many as his Liverpool side generated in year one, the Dutchman likely still wants more.
Ah, Florian. Come on in. Wirtz would have been sixth among players in the English top flight with at least as many minutes last season with 1.68, one place above his potential new teammate DÃaz.
Perhaps the Leverkusen attacker will pay a Bundesliga tax in the Premier League, similar to how Minteh did. It is unlikely every player maintains their 2024/25 rate for the Reds next term either, as there will only be so many chance creating or shot generating carries to divide among the squad.
Frimpong, Kerkez and Wirtz should get Liverpool closer to what is likely Slot’s ideal on this front though. Assuming the latter of the three (likely) signings remains close to his peak, the Reds’ head coach may owe a debt of thanks to Marko Marin.
Boy... you're gonna carry that ball, carry that ball a long time.
With all these productive carriers, Liverpool should be VERY fun to watch next season.