This might be true but I dont know how thats relevant.
Florian Wirtz | Liverpool Player
- Thread starter Invictus
- Start date
Listening to The Athletic's podcast they're not really finding reasons as to why he's been bad, rather they're saying he has been doing very well considering how bad Liverpool is playing and how tough their fixtures have been. And it goes on for 40 minutes.
Joined 25 years ago but humour of a 12 year-old. Thanks for this constructive post.
It’s relevant because Wirtz is now in a place, where it doesn’t matter if your performance might have been considered good, if another player scored from your pass. A club paid more than 120 million euros for him. It doesn’t matter, what his teammates are doing. The expectation is on him to deliver, regardless of basically everything else. And it doesn’t matter, if that’s fair or not. It’s the world Wirtz lives in now and he has to learn to deal with it.
Nothing against the lad personally but it has been lovely having a go at the dippers and seeing them scrambling for excuses to justify their big money flop for the mean time.
I’ve seen many top players start slow in the PL but usually within the first five games they at least have one standout game or have a performance which starts the run of good form. Wirtz getting worse is what would worry me as a Liverpool fan and the fact he hasn’t had not even one standout performance where he puts it all together.
Usually when you start slow and continue slow, it never really turns around. If he was inconsistent that would be much better but he’s just a ghost most of the time.
I’ve seen many top players start slow in the PL but usually within the first five games they at least have one standout game or have a performance which starts the run of good form. Wirtz getting worse is what would worry me as a Liverpool fan and the fact he hasn’t had not even one standout performance where he puts it all together.
Usually when you start slow and continue slow, it never really turns around. If he was inconsistent that would be much better but he’s just a ghost most of the time.
It’s true is it not? Every time that there is criticism of Wirtz fans of his former team turn up to defend himNah, we're just not educated enough to know that he's actually playing really well and will only get better.
He does have the look of a guy that seems overwhelmed by the whole thing so far.
He can't be this bad, but these things can unravel very quickly for big money signings that start slowly.
Antony, Pepe, Werner, Mudryk, Keita, etc, the PL has found out many a top looking player from other leagues, I don't see why Wirtz might not go the same way.
He can't be this bad, but these things can unravel very quickly for big money signings that start slowly.
Antony, Pepe, Werner, Mudryk, Keita, etc, the PL has found out many a top looking player from other leagues, I don't see why Wirtz might not go the same way.
If you search Wirtz on Google, the top five articles are from Sky Sports, the Daily Mail, SportBible, The Mirror and The Guardian calling him bad.
Could have gone to Bayern or Pep, and it would have been easier for him. But no, this miserable git had to choose Liverpool. I hope he is enjoying the experience and long may it continue
Football fans love to pile on a (rival) player when he has a slow start. Beautiful pass yesterday to Salah and would've been great assist if Salah did score. I don't want Wirtz to do well because he's at Liverpool but he's a quality player and in such an early phase of his Liverpool career. Great assist from Isak to Gakpo as well.
Fluky. He's been turning and flicking the ball around to no one or to opposition players for a while. This one time it fell into Salah's path. Even he was surprised.
I think Isak was trying to bring that ball down for himself and unintentionally misconstrued it into Gakpo’s path.
Sancho started better for us than him for Liverpool.
I'm going to join a Juve forum to defend him when the Juve fans there call Scott McTominay overrated.
Seriously what's with this behaviour?
We have a Liverpool fan signing up just to defend Wirtz, and Leverkusen fans who pop up out of the abyss just to defend Wirtz.
Seriously what's with this behaviour?
We have a Liverpool fan signing up just to defend Wirtz, and Leverkusen fans who pop up out of the abyss just to defend Wirtz.
Please leave the BDL out of this!
It’s only Leverkusen fans defending him.Although, I too, believe that he will turn out just fine.
Fair. LDLPlease leave the BDL out of this!
Although, I too, believe that he will turn out just fine.
Exactly. If we want to defend the Bundesliga, we just go to the Ekitike or Woltemade threads who look much better than Wirtz (especially Woltemade who played the same position as Wirtz last season, proving that you can buy AMs who are technical and good at dribbling from the BLPlease leave the BDL out of this!
). Or we praise Glasner as United's next manager who became the manager he is today in the Bundesliga I don't think that was stylistic adaption.
Serie A was just much much superior to PL at the time.
While true I assume he's referring to henery who failed at juve and in his case it really was a case of bad luck seeing how he was a balon d'or level player as we later found out.
So why did Veron fail at Utd? Then in the mid 2000s guys like Crespo and Sheva failed at Chelsea even though the two leagues were comparable.
Henry was young at the time and making the step up was difficult, but he also wasn’t given a fair chance by Juve, being there for only a few months, his first few months in the PL was difficult as well but he pulled through. Bergkamp, VdS also found it difficult there and rebuilt their career in the PL, just off the top of my head.
Has there really been a top goalkeeper who "didn't suit the style of the league?". That's not really a thing, surely. Nowadays you have GK's who don't suit specific teams due to the passing out from the back thing, but entire leagues? Not sure I agree with that.
Shevchenko and Crespo were just past it. Shevchenko was already seeing signs of decline the season prior, Crespo had been done in by injuries at that point.
Nowadays, stylistically it matters but I think back then it was just a case of Serie A being a much better league. Veron was the exception, not the norm.
Henry failed in Serie A because he was being used as a defensive/up and down classic winger in a Juve system that was basically 4-4-1-1
When everyone was fit, It was Del Pierro as the #10 behind Inzaghi as #9. Deschamps and Davids in the two midfield positions, Antonio Conte as the Right Wide Midfielder, and....Zinedine Zidane as the left midfielder.
People who say Henry failed at Juve fail to understand the context that the person he was competing with as the left midfielder was literally Zidane, and if he wanted to play up top he was competing with prime Inzaghi and Del Piero.
Because he was. Before his move to Bayern he was definitely on par with Neymar on a skill/talent level. Couldn't predict how injuries would've effected Gotze after he moved to Bayern, but also I think he wasn't mentally strong enough for the move. He said afterwards that he would've wished he had better advice. We didn't know it at that time but there was a Dortmund player who had the combination of talent and mentality, Reus. At his peak, he was equal to Hazard (though not peak Neymar).
Please leave the BDL out of this!
Although, I too, believe that he will turn out just fine.
It's refreshing to see inter league hate between Bayern and Leverkusen fans for a German player, don't think I've seen this with any other player in the past
Why? He won the league. We finished 16th. and lost a final against a spurs side managed by Ange. We deserve every bit of vitriol from the media.
Not only did he win the league, he’s also currently a single point off top spot.
I agree that he had a lot of things line up for him last season and he’s not dealing very well with his first taste of adversity, but he still won the league on his first attempt. We can be balanced about it.
Eh? What hate? Me not defending Wirtz doesn’t equal me “hating” on him. Why does everything have to be so binary and tribal? That is something I indeed hate.It's refreshing to see inter league hate between Bayern and Leverkusen fans for a German player, don't think I've seen this with any other player in the past
Really says a lot about the British media with Wirtz treatment in comparison to Pogba.
Love seeing the dippers wriggle. Nice to be on the other side of the fence for a change.
Nobody thinks McJesus is overrated in Italy
As for Henry, Crespo, Veron and Sheva, the first got 6 months being played mostly as a wingback by a manager who had no clue(Ancelotti
), Crespo couldn't deal with english refs, Veron couldn't deal with the chaos and pace of play and refs, and Sheva was already in physical decline, and moved to a team where the manager(and teammates) didn't want him and made him aware of thatEveryone knows the English are clueless about football. They throw money at us sophisticated continentals to make them look better.
Re: Götze, it's not injuries and a weak mentality; he's just not a naturally athletic player and has congenital metabolism issues which led to speculation he had hypothyroidism, iirc it was diagnosed as metabolic myopathy. Even if he stayed at Dortmund the same issues with fatigue and fitness will still crop up from time to time, affecting his career trajectory eventually.
I doubt there's been a recent Dortmund talent on par with Neymar, the player that comes close is Dembele (Barca signed him to be the replacement after all) but Santos/Barca Neymar wipes the floor in terms of creativity.
Reus was very unlucky with injuries, but I don't get the comparison to Hazard who was a more technical dribbler in terms of close control and low CG. Reus relied more on pace and acceleration.
Reus also was a completely different player to Hazard, who relied on intense close control and agility, whereas Reus was very good at off the ball movement, finding space in the box and more short term bursts.
Gotze is also a completely different player to Hazard and Neymar yet that was the first comparison made, my Reus example was just about the overall quality of him versus Hazard and Neymar, nothing to do with playstyles.
Google returns biased results. First answers are "sponsored".
It is very odd to relentlessly fawn over a player who left before his peak to join a bigger club. Reminds me of when I'd see United fans online celebrating Ronaldo's goals in a Madrid shirt, although it was never to this extent where they were watching every game of his in an endeavour to defend him no matter what.I'm going to join a Juve forum to defend him when the Juve fans there call Scott McTominay overrated.
Seriously what's with this behaviour?
We have a Liverpool fan signing up just to defend Wirtz, and Leverkusen fans who pop up out of the abyss just to defend Wirtz.
The Götze and Reus comparisons are extremely flattering. This chap looks like the new Kagawa.
Götze had to restart his career at PSV, that's a big drop in level, not so different to Kagawa.
He'll come good evenually. I just really hope it's not in their next game.
Reus could have won a balon Dor if it wasn't for his quote ridiculous injury list which left him a shadow of the player he could have been.