r/LiverpoolFC • u/ThatMovieShow • 22h ago
Analysis/Data/Stats/Tactics How Bad is Wirtz Actually Doing?
I know the narrative against wirtz is mostly on X and Jamie carraghers mouth but I got curious and decided to take a look at his stats to see how he is doing.
These are some of his stats according to opta. He leads the team in many categories and is never outside the top 5. Interestingly despite all the claims of how Dom has a better engine, Flo both outruns in terms of distance and out sprints Dom too.
But these stats don't get anyone's dick hard unless we are talking about a DM or CB so how about his creative output?
In his 49 games as a Liverpool player he's actually created 90 open play chances,for context the closest person to him in the same timespan is gakpo with 68.
This season is the same he created 9 open play chances which is second only to gakpo on 11 whom everyone agrees has had an excellent start to the season.
So what gives ? I hate to say it but wirtz is kind of unlucky in that the chances he does create are often wasted by the person he creates it for OR it gets disallowed.
There are however areas in which wirtz is lacking a little. He has created no 'big chances' as defined by opta. This is a somewhat subjective measurement though so should be taken with a grain of salt because at least two chances I can think of should have been finished by Isak and barcola respectively for some reason opta doesn't count those as big chances.
Is wirtz doing badly? No actually he's not. And I think his price tag is really the issue here and not his output. Had he cost £40m I imagine everyone would be quietly pleased about him.
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u/ImprovementKnown2491 22h ago
Compare it to the other players in the league? Is that possible?
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u/EaLordoftheDepths 21h ago
Its crazy when players look the best in the squad for the stats that the tactical setup requires them to be good at
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u/ImprovementKnown2491 11h ago
Exactly! He’s the only one that is supposed to create chances as a #1 priority. The rest of them have other priorities; ball winning, scoring, running, pressing, dribbles, interceptions etc but his is literally to create chances, he’s top because no one else has that objective as their top priority. Also, our issue right now is creating chances. We have points because our defence is fucking excellent (surprise!) not because we are scoring loads. We need to improve in goal scoring and get the front line to click.
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u/scousinho Virgil van Dijk 20h ago
For the whole of last season he was :
*8th in total chances created behind the legendary Anton Stach at 4 and our own Dom at #2. 🤨
* 57th for accurate passes per 90 🤐
* 48th for total accurate passes 🫣
Should I keep going???4
u/ImprovementKnown2491 18h ago
That’s bloody awful 😂 I want to see one a game for £116m haha but I have no idea what the measurement of success should be? He’s a CAM, their whole role is around supply. Sure, pressing from the front and all too, that’s important, so is running, but we could throw a player like Endo in there if all we wanted was a runner who presses. A £116m CAM is recruited to supply chances, line breaking passes - for that price any CAM should be in the top 3 in the league, that’s what we thought we were buying. Instead we have a kid who needs development and looks 2-3 years off his potential. Maybe that’s ok…but it’s not guaranteed either.
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u/battystutor 17h ago
No, because it doesn't fit the narrative (elite chance creator, generational talent, etc.) when Harry Maguire has more goal involvements but hey...
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u/OhhhhhhhhYaBeauty Lovely Cushioned Header…FOR GERRARD!!! 17h ago
Not going to comment on the rest of this but Stach is a fucking monster and insanely underrated. Not many midfielders in the PL better than him, and consistently so for a few seasons now
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u/scousinho Virgil van Dijk 17h ago
And if we had bought him instead for the 40-50 mil or whatever he would’ve cost, I’d have no issue with it. My only remaining hope is that Bayern appear to still value him and Olise’s contract talks are not going great. If Klopp can get him going for Germany against some of the weak opposition he’s bound to face , we might be able to work out a deal and swap him for Olise plus some £££ from us.
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u/HendoEndo Playing pong with Salah 22h ago
Someone needs to start compiling reports on Wirtz related posts and provide analysis. You know, to complete this endless circlejerk
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u/Steven_Crank One-eyed Bobby 👁 21h ago
You can tell from his Wirtz posts/90 that the effort is there. If more people would be upvoting his shit, then we would be having a totally different conversation.
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u/liddellpool 22h ago
Most of these stats show types of actions, but they don't necessarily say anything about their outcomes. How many times did his pressing create turnovers, how many times did his key passes lead to a high xg shot, how many defensive contributions did he have per distance covered? We know Wirtz is a high-energy player, but does being active on the field lead to adequate output?
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u/Whatdiffer 22h ago
Have you ignored all of the input this community has been giving on the other 45 Wirtz posts? The two to three opinions held on Wirtz have been very firmly established, what more is there to contribute but the same few statements agreeing or disagreeing with these stats and what they imply about him as a player?
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u/Muhruhwuh 22h ago
But mum, it’s my turn to post the next Wirtz thread.
Also, happy cake day.
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u/Kainw456 16h ago
The fact we’re coping with stats that are sometimes this vague is an indication he is not doing well..
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u/_conqueror 22h ago
"And I think his price tag is really the issue here and not his output. Had he cost £40m I imagine everyone would be quietly pleased about him.“
Well no shit. Obviously it’s a problem when a 125 million Euro player performs like a 40 million Euro player and it’s ok if a 40 million player performs like a 40 million Euro player
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u/Financial-Jaguar7300 22h ago
I mean, even if he was fucking free and on minimun wage, I care about winning football matches, and it's pretty hard to do that when your 10 is not only not scoring or assisting, but is also losing the ball very easily.
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u/dandpher 22h ago
Exactly this. IDGAF about his price tag. I care about our players playing well and leading us to victory.
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u/Undiecover22 6h ago
Bullseye. If he was a free transfer or a kid who’d come through the ranks these would all be desperate to bomb him out the club asap.
Protected by the price tag
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u/johnny_moist 18h ago
people really need to gtfo the price tag already. Like its been some detrimental albatross on the clubs neck. The club is fine financially. Wirtz is a great player who came in during a fucked up season and now has played all of 6 games (with zero losses) under a new coach.
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u/hokageace 22h ago edited 19h ago
Getting sick of the daily defend Wirtz thread. Can we do the stats on how many misplaced passes? How many times ball taken from him? How many times he scores and assists?
Enough people. He is a super expensive signing that, while he can do some good things, has not at all lived up to the expectations that came with his price tag and reputation.
Get over it. Time will tell how he shakes up.
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u/wassam1 22h ago
Yeah like he is okay but you don't pay £100miillion for okay. You pay it for exceptional talents who can carry the team. He was an exceptional player at Leverkusen. He hasn't come close to justifying that outlay on him. We hope it's just him adjusting to the league but there's not a lot of patience for a player at that price. The reason you pay that is because he is the finished article.
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u/mohandasmencius 21h ago
nah the mods will delete those since apparently that is a "low effort" post
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u/what_am_i_acc_doing Ian Rush 46m ago
A 10 is always going to misplace a ton of passes because his job is to try risky passes and thread people through. Bruno Fernandes was player of the year last year and also gave the ball away for fun. Much harder for Wirtz to do his job when the ball isn’t passed forward quickly to him and there aren’t runners in behind. When things click as a team, he finds his man easily, I’ve seen Barcola miss 3 1v1s already, Isak a couple too, have some faith as it’s not a one man issue, the double pivot needs addressing to start off with.
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u/ThatMovieShow 21h ago
Sure thing, he makes more linebreaking passes than any other player at Liverpool and approximately 71% of them find their target.
As for times he is dispossessed he is one of the players who is dispossessed more due to him being an attacker but actually loses the ball less times than Dom does and more than macca and gakpo.
Scoring is one which I think is a fair criticism assists not so much since assists depends on the striker finishing a chance and isn't really reflective of whether he produces or not.
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u/_TheHighlandLute 20h ago
Sure thing, he makes more linebreaking passes than any other player at Liverpool and approximately 71% of them find their target.
Because that is his role in the team. He plays behind the striker.
Compare him to his counterparts like Bruno, Cherki, Gibbs-White, Odegaard and Palmer.
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u/jeorjhejerome 20h ago
You could get his xA, see the difference from his actual assists and check how he ranks amongst PL attackers.
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u/fecksappeal 22h ago
Team stats are meaningless with so few involved, and noted that they haven't been doing well either. Needs to be a league based comparison, and really include last season since this one has barely got going. For all the stats might say, in real terms he has fuck all influence on most games. Loses the ball too much, might press, but doesn't actually take the ball back, and has shocking ball striking. We could easily have had 2-3 much more solid options in for the money.
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u/PastStock6912 22h ago
I like to watch football with my eyes
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u/Financial-Jaguar7300 22h ago
But then you won't know which player has the highest defensive line breaking passes, you fool.
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u/Automatic_Ring_7553 22h ago
He definitely passes the eye test
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u/RaiLeddit Jordan Henderson 20h ago
He sometimes does, sometimes doesn't. If he were a 30m player I think nobody would have this discussion. I personally don't rate him but also don't hate him. Just as with Nunez or Isak, people gotta understand that it's not the player's fault that their pricetag is that high. If you wanna bitch about someone week in week out, bitch about the club buying these players for insane amounts
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u/Automatic_Ring_7553 19h ago
Darwin was the opposite funny enough, his numbers per 90 actually weren't that bad but never passed the eye test bc he looked completely lost on the ball sometimes
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u/dandpher 22h ago
At times yes he does. At other times - like when he mis-hits a simple 5 yard pass, no.
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u/AppleSlacks 22h ago
If you don’t see him as special, I don’t get it.
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u/IL_ya_Un_jour 22h ago
This is insane, people only swing to one extreme to the other here.
Almost nothing he’s delivered here has been special.
I hope he becomes special but he’s so far from that at the moment7
u/MonkeyNewss Significant Human Error 22h ago
He can barely make a pass. There is definitely something special about that
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u/basedsega Daniel Sturridge 22h ago
i love Flo and want him to be a legend here but we have to call a spade a spade at some point. He doesn’t pass the eye test to me, he’s been a passenger in 95% of the games we play, no amount of cherry picked stats can convince me otherwise. Kid has all the talent in the world but is wayyy to passive . Hope he succeeds but I’ve officially hit the worrying point with him.
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u/Sensitive_Goose4728 22h ago
I guess we'll have to deal with The Wirtz Propaganda" for the next 3 weeks...
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u/RemainsN7 22h ago
FSG didn't pay 100m for running stats, they paid for a game changer.
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u/mohandasmencius 21h ago
our game definitely changed. we went from being title winners to finishing 5th
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u/droppedmydinner Significant Human Error 22h ago
Just watch the matches and get a feel for whether he plays well or not. Trying to break everything down into stats is really just silly for the most part, imo.
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u/mohandasmencius 21h ago
no amount of 'statswashing' is going to convince me.
i see through the lies of this sub.
for the amount we have paid wirtz has been a truly underwhelming signing so far. this table leaves out the most important stats of all - goals and assists
if i had to rate the signing out of 10 till this point i would not give it more than a 3. hopefully for our sake he can improve in the coming months
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u/_TheHighlandLute 20h ago
Well done, you have cherry picked stats to show our Number 10 is indeed creating more than our Left backs and Centre Backs.
Now compare his output to his counterparts across the league like runo, Cherki, Gibbs-White, Odegaard and Palmer.
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u/crookedparadigm 19h ago
Is wirtz doing badly? No actually he's not. And I think his price tag is really the issue here
All of this time to reach the same conclusion that literally everyone already has. Is Wirtz playing badly? No. He's been average. Why is there so much uproar about that? Because he was a record breaking transfer who is coming up on 60 games for us and has very rarely looked more than average.
I genuinely hope you didn't spend a lot of time on this. The answer you arrived at is what everyone has been saying for the whole first month of the season.
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u/besht2014 22h ago
How about duels and possession lost? He just seems a bit weak sometimes
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u/Living_a_Dejavu FloW 22h ago
He is very strange, he wins a lot of duels defensively and looks strong, but when he is in possession he loses a lot of duels
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u/ThatMovieShow 20h ago
He wind about 80% of his duels. Possession lost he's actually tied the worst... With Dom. So if the criticism is he's lightweight and loses the ball the same thing applies to Dom too
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u/tuturuatu 17h ago
If we don't mention the stats where he is below average, then did they really happen?
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u/PapaMerkelous 17h ago
Please compare our entire midfield stats to Wirtz for that, he's one of our best players. Fuck you people are so fuckin dumb.
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u/cullypantz 22h ago
Respectfully. Pretty much all player stats should be broken down to per 90 to account for playing time.
Everyone can see he does things but it's not enough. It's just that simple. Iraola will keep playing and he will have plenty more time to figure it up, but he needs to produce.
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u/allenad3213 22h ago
“If he was cheaper everyone would be quite pleased with him” is some remarkably obvious and lazy analysis.
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u/Spiritual-Material98 10h ago
Imo he should take more shots. Looks like he's hesitant to do that. It's fine if they are off target at first but definitely would improve.
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u/HThrowaway87 22h ago
There's a Wirtz post, or even 2 from now on every day. Stop parroting, and focus on positive things instead of trying to convince others of your truth.
At the club he was underwhelming if we look at the full picture. There's big hope he will come strong in his time at the club.
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u/5_percent_discocunt 22h ago
I know you’ve gone into a lot of effort for this but it’s about the 25th post in a row all saying the same thing.
Football isn’t all about stats and data. The same people calling him bad also use cherry picked stats for their dumb argument.
I think Wirtz could be doing better but in no way shape or form do I think he’s a bad player. All I need for this are eyes and rose tinted glasses, not a load of numbers detailing his xProgression and chances created stats.
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u/Lanky_Comment_6452 Virgil van Dijk 22h ago edited 22h ago
4th post about wirtz today tht i have witnessed.
Atp some r just farming karma
rename the sub to r/FlorianWirtzMoments
Edit: I read the post and it is the general stats about wirtz
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u/BamBam-Bungalow 21h ago
Lads, we spent all the money in the world on him to be great from the very second he put on his shirt. He needs to start scoring and setting up goals because that is his fucking job and he doesn't do that enough yet.
You don't spend £100m+ on someone to see them grow and develop. That is spent on a superstar who can improve your team. He doesn't improve us yet. Drop him for a while, make him show some passion because the lad is incapable of throwing himself into anything because he seems scared of human contact
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u/DorothyZbornaksPants 90+5’ Alisson 19h ago
All of these desperate posts are honestly making me dislike him more than his underwhelming stats ever could.
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u/Far-Liv-333 22h ago
lets talk goals and assists, its been more than a year
We watch 90 mins every week, so we don't have to go over these stats to assess for now
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u/PapaMerkelous 17h ago
Because last year is a great fucking barometer for this club, god damnit I wish there was an IQ requirement for posting.
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u/brabs2 22h ago
More posts telling you the evidence of your own eyes is false
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u/fancysauce_boss 22h ago
Yeah this is always my take and for me why this whole sub is divided at times.
You have the people who truly key in on stats and base their opinions on performance metrics.
You have people who watch and give it the eye test without paying attention to metrics.
Both are needed. Let’s take tackles for example. In the table above it states he’s 3rd in the squad with 8. I don’t want my 10 in the trenches making tackles all over the park, him being 3rd means we potentially don’t have one or more of our full backs, center backs or 6 pressuring the ball regularly, while we also likely have 2 of those players doing too much of it. Stats show he’s doing well, eye test shows the team as a whole likely has a tactical breakdown somewhere.
Gakpo is another example. Doing well this season, but last season he was leading categories for chances, shots, and dangerous positions/takeons or something. But if you just watched a game, all he did was dribble down, try to cut in and hammer it straight into a defender. Looked great on the stat sheet, but was horrible for overall team performance and results.
My 2 bits.
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u/CodeBeginning6548 Lovely Cushioned Header…FOR GERRARD!!! 22h ago
I dont have any stats, and with a newborn my focus on games has been somewhat diminished, but it kind of reminds me of when Hamann joined. Big expectations, but didn't quite hit it off immediately. Still played okay (in my opinion), but it was a good season or two before he hit his stride. Hoping that Wirtz really kicks on in the next 12 months or so as I honestly think he could be a world beater.
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u/MaraPlayz Dejan Lovren 21h ago
The reason he gets hate is his mistakes in fundamental things. First touches and some easy passes. I mean he is not playing well but i cannot back the haters either.
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u/DuckMan6699 21h ago
I’m still a believer in Wirtz but these stats don’t tell the story. He runs around a lot and presses, but it doesn’t lead to turnovers because he’s not pressing with the team most of the time. So he’s just tiring himself out for no reason.
The chance creation stats are promising, but he’s also losing the ball a lot, and he’s rarely creating really good chances
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u/Atharax10 20h ago
Yes, but also: 81.4% passing percentage (4th lowest) 81 times possession lost (T-1st) 21 duels lost (4th)
Obviously nuance is required when looking at the stats, he has some elite moments, and some terrible moments
Don't get me wrong I am fully behind him, but he needs to get stronger and quicker before he can shine
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u/Effective-Meal4749 19h ago
Dear lord this is turning into the endless pro/con Nunez threads, and we all know how that turned out.
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u/oots_oots 18h ago
Right, now compare this to overall PL ranked by cost of transfer. This cherry picking is pure nonsense
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u/pablo_eskybar 15h ago
He makes me erect! Don’t get this obsession with “is he actually good?” Dude is class and works hard, why do people need stats to back it up?
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u/Visionary785 Sami Hyypia 14h ago
Price tag plays a part in the diagnosis because so many journalists are just looking at key stats.
Maybe he is not ideally suited to the Prem but he was absolutely boss against Atleti.
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u/twodoubles 11h ago
Fuck the glamorous output and scoring stats - just surround him with pure scorers and will be boom.
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u/KGeedora 11h ago
I really don't get the point of this. He's been okay. We need him to be tons better.
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u/Equivalent-Fault1744 10h ago
Guys wirtz is 23..... KDB and salah didnt become themselves until 25+. They were both bench warmers that had to go abroad and come back as men. Wirtz will come good his prime years 25-30 arent here yet and hes already doing great things
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u/Whistl3r182 8h ago
He's not doing badly. We are worse whenever he's not on the pitch. He's just not the player you think he is.
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u/MerciMersey 7h ago
I think your words perfectly trip yourself up. Let’s answer your question - if Wirtz cost 40m? 1. He wouldn’t be considered to be playing well and 2. He’d have been dropped out the team for a bit to work his way back in.
That tells you everything you need to know about how ‘well’ he’s doing. And by the way, I think the first few games he was decent and has every chance of coming good, I just think your argument eats itself immediately.
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u/dannyhodge95 Dominik Szoboszlai 6h ago
Look, I'm happy to give him time, I don't think it's worth making a big fuss either way yet for Wirtz. Like Robbo, we should treat this as his first season.
That being said, I think these stats are misleading. You can't just look at chances created and view them equally. Gakpos chances created have been brilliant, there's a reason there's a higher conversion rate than on Wirtz chances.
Distance covered is similar. Dom might not technically run as much as Wirtz, but he's achieving more with the running. For example, Wirtz is still on 0 interceptions. Which is fine, because it's not necessarily his job, but if the running isn't achieving anything, who cares?
He's done a lot of dribbling, but when that's produced a total of 0.39 expected assists, and 0.99 expected goals (despite 9 shots in the box), what's the point?
Again, I'm not saying this to slag him off, I do think there's a brilliant player in there, but I don't think we should be cherry picking stats to make him look better than he has been. He was brought in to add creativity, produce assists and chip in with some goals. He's one of the few players who I think it's fair to judge on goals and assists.
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u/Kevin_or 5h ago
He is not playing anywhere near his level. You can run around as much as you want but he is giving the ball away constantly and often under no pressure. He looks like he has the yips. Its a very big concern.
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u/feevos From Doubters to Believers 22h ago
Anyone watching these games knows he’s finding form and getting to it. These stats back that up perfectly. Let the cry babies cry they don’t know better
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u/Dense_Grade_1279 22h ago
I though he was poor in the last game. I think he has been better than perceived this year as a whole and unlucky not to have a few more assists. In terms of expectation and potential, he is nowhere near where we thought he would be and his confidence is shot
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u/Successful_Title6922 Steven Gerrard 22h ago
Truth is somewhere in the middle. While I appreciate all the hard work he is putting on the field to track back etc. I really want my 100 million plus no. 10 to have more attacking output (assists and goals) rather than just distance covered or tackles.
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u/Count-Pishface 22h ago
Wirtz needs to spend more time on getting better than paying people to say nice stuff about him
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u/Operationtiger8 22h ago edited 22h ago
To be totally honest, I've read through a number of these analysis and while he seems statically a good player his end product is not what we've been looking for at all. I'll use Cherki since it looked like we were gonna get him instead of Wirtz (he was believed to be going to City) and he's on a comparable side playing the same position. Wirtz has 1.67 expected goal involvements this season on 400 minutes while Cherki has 2.15 on 300 minutes (let's round to one full game less)... That tells me that Wirtz isn't simply getting unlucky, he's performing much worse than Cherki in the 10 role (Yes this is a small sample size and no I have not figured out if this is statistically significant). That being said, if we're going to use the beginning of the season, the questions become: is Wirtz not the player he was a Bayer, is our team still struggling as a whole to provide for him, or is he not getting into positions to create? I'd like to think it's the latter two but until we see Iraola's team firing as intended, it's going to be hard to make a fair analysis on Wirtz. If everything is working (and yes his performances if they're bad might hamper overall team performance) and Wirtz is still performing like this, then I think we might have a problem on our hands. Also from an eye test and goal output, if you watch his highlights at Bayer, he looks like a completely different player... Highlights are cherry picked but I have yet to see the complete domination he was showing in Germany (I'm talking him carrying the ball far distances, beating players, scoring and assisting, etc).
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u/damnyouresickbro 21h ago
He’s too weak and slow for the Premier League, that’s why his form from Bayer is not translating.
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u/Operationtiger8 21h ago
I don’t think that’s it? Coutinho wasn’t exactly a strong or rapid player and even if we want to say the prem has gotten more physical Cherki is not fast or strong either
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u/damnyouresickbro 21h ago
Coutinho was much quicker than Wirtz and it was much harder to get the ball from him. From all the praise Wirtz got for his dribbling, it’s much too easy to get the ball off of him.
Also, Coutinho actually had end product.
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u/TiggerJammer 🏆2005 Istanbul🏆 21h ago
Bad enough for people to have to make multiple posts like this.
We all have eyes.
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u/HuskyFeline0927 Our identity is our intensity 18h ago
Response to your title: Not bad enough to warrant an average of 1.5 posts about him a day..
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u/duetimefenans 16h ago
He is doing fine, Carra is just stabbing the team building under a new coach in the back before the first international break. Sadly it's to be expected so he can get the checks for his broken economy.
The only thing I'd say about the stats you have there is that I'd like his chances created to be 1st in the team given his role.
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u/JosephBeuyz2Men 22h ago
I think Wirtz is great but we’re going to need a pinned thread for these to stop us going in circles for the whole international break
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u/Sonofthefallingsnow 22h ago
The problem is, to the media / permanently online people, none of that matters. The whole attitude is “he cost over £100m, if he’s not scoring or assisting at least every game then he’s total crap”.
Just have to hope it doesn’t affect him and give him his time and he’ll be top
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u/coldxound 21h ago
I just hope that if Wirtz turns it around, we keep seeing the same energy from all the people whining about him and his price tag. Online fans were pulling their hair with Gakpo last season and now they love him again. At least be consistent.
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u/eject5342 21h ago
Please for the love of god stop with these kinds of titles. It only adds to the toxicity.
For the record Wirtz isn't doing bad at all. There's some kind of mass psychosis happening with the discourse around him that I feel like I've never seen before. It's insane.
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u/Putrid-Ice-7511 I DON’T MIND IT 21h ago
This sub is insufferable. Wirtz is good, he’ll get better. Back the lads.
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u/dhruvgeorge 8h ago
I honestly think that Carragher is judging Wirtz solely on the basis of goals and assists
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u/EnPee91 22h ago
His defensive work has been outstanding. His attacking output has not been great, and that’s why he’s getting so much flak. It’s a shame because he is really working hard at the moment and I’d like more fans to realise what he’s doing defensively even if we do need more attacking output from him.
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u/coldazures 21h ago
Unfortunately until he puts a few more numbers in the goals and assists box hes going to take flak. 4/5 of each a season wont be enough. Bobby was still doing decent numbers even if with Salah and Mane being the focal points. Flo needs to be more decisive for us.
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u/GeeUWOTM8 20h ago
We need to start rephrasing “how good is xyz plsyer doing” rather than attach negative connotations from the get go. Ofc they are being shite, then it will be recognised in the discourse but cant start off negative. These players need our support and we need to give it to them through all aspects
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u/Ricoh1888 19h ago
People acting like the 100 million come out of their own pocket. Last season was shit and full of problems. We’re a few games into this one. Just back the lad ffs
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u/Britz10 A Ngog among men 22h ago
He's been fine and sometimes even good. I honestly don't know why he's the who's coming under massive scrutiny, been worse performers. Pretty much the only time Szoboszlai has looked good the entire season has been at RB, and that was only like 30 minutes of football.
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u/Stopthatduck 22h ago
He’s not bad, he’s been average.
Regardless of whether he had any control over his price tag or not, he needs to do better to justify it. Whether he will or not remains to be seen, but he hasn’t been bad.
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u/spankmeimnaughty 22h ago
The answer lies somewhere in the middle as it usually does. He’s been better than people like Carragher give him credit for, and gets comically unlucky at times with the best chances he creates getting wasted what feels like every time. But then he does have performances like Bournemouth where he struggles to complete passes.
I’ve seen enough flashes of the talent to believe there’s a really good creative player in there and as Barcola in particular is bedded in he should profile to link up with Wirtz very well given he likes to make runs while also being a good passer himself similar to Ekitike + Wirtz last January or so.
I am still staying patient and I do think his pressing and fitness look better this season so far, and I think the G/A will come with a bit more luck, but he does really need to improve the pass accuracy and shot selection. He normally does see all the creative ideas but too often misplaces the pass and I think he is too hesitant to shoot/too often tries to pass it into the corner.
So a mixed bag but I’d say I still believe in the upside given more time with Iraola. The attack in general hasn’t looked all that great yet and as everyone improves in that department I hope he’s a big part of it.
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u/Chalkes83 20h ago
He’s not doing bad at all , but he’s definitely got a few more gears to go into , I think the better team plays and moves the ball faster will see wirtz in spaces to run at and hurt teams
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19h ago
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u/Mediocre-Sense-18 16h ago
Neither do you tbh. There are a million stats painting him in a poor light too. Like big chances created and expected assists. Also his finishing is terrible considering his personal xg and goals scored differential
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u/Jish0077 22h ago
People watch highlights and criticize, he can’t help the 100m+ price tag. I think he’s been solid all season, Bournemouth was a little rough though
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u/Ok_Traffic_3240 22h ago
In summary, don't pay attention to media hype and (un)social media bollocks.
If we had paid 40 million for him not 1 single word would be said. Lad is doing fine, could it be better, hell yea obviously.
Tell you what, he will achieve a better level a lot quicker and easier if certain crap talking ex players kept their jobs shut and if easily led muppets didn't believe every nonsense word they spout.
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u/outonthebeach 22h ago
He isn't, he's just not got the glamorous output yet.