Florian Wirtz: Why Liverpool have gone all in on Bayer Leverkusen star and where he could be deployed under Arne Slot | Football News

Liverpool have completed the signing of Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz for a fee that could reach £116m – so why will they break the British transfer record for the attacking midfielder and where could he play under Arne Slot?

The excitement at Liverpool is palpable given they have lured one of the best and most sought-after young footballers in the world to Anfield for the prime years of his career as Slot looks to evolve his title-winning side next season.

“He is an amazing player, one of the biggest talents and most exciting players we have in Germany right now,” said Sky in Germany reporter Florian Plettenberg.

Wirtz is set to play a key role in the side’s development, with the German wunderkind’s varied skillset allowing Slot to utilise him in a variety of positions going forward.

Fenway Sports Group CEO of Football Michael Edwards reportedly first tried to sign Wirtz back in 2020, when he was still in FC Koln’s youth setup, and despite the player suffering a torn ACL in his left knee in March 2022, has stayed in contact with his family ever since.

The 22-year-old was in such high demand this summer, with Liverpool beating Bayern Munich and Manchester City to his signature, because he is, in essence, the complete attacking package.

A generational talent that not only creates but also scores – 44 goal contributions, in fact, across the last two German top-flight campaigns, including 21 goals and a Bundesliga-high 23 assists. That was the second most of any player aged under 23 in Europe’s top-five leagues in that time, behind Chelsea’s Cole Palmer.

Last season, for the second year in a row, Wirtz was one of only six players to reach double figures for goals and assists in the continent’s big-five leagues.

“He is such a talented player, playing passes with precision and tempo. He is making his team-mates better but also scoring goals himself,” said Sky in Germany reporter Felix Fischer.

“He is able to decide games on his own and that is a quality that will lift Liverpool another five or 10 per cent higher. They are already great but Wirtz will bring a new quality there.”

One of the primary reasons Wirtz is both a scorer and provider is that he is right-footed but equally adept at using his left, thus allowing him to effortlessly glide past bamboozled opponents into threatening areas of the pitch – as you can see in the video above.

The playmaker attempted a Bundesliga-high 313 take-ons, while only Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal (231), West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus (216) and Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku (203) completed more than his 161 dribbles in the last two seasons in Europe’s top-five leagues.

As a result, Wirtz created 124 chances from open play in that period across the continent’s big-five leagues, a figure bettered by only Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (150), Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard (139), Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes (137) and Palmer (134).

Supplementing those eye-catching solo runs is Wirtz’s precision passing, with the attacking midfielder always looking for that killer through ball to open up packed opposition defences that like to sit deep – something Liverpool often have to counter.

Illustrating that point, the twinkle-toed German ranked first in the Bundesliga for through balls (49) and completed lay-off passes (123) last season.

Unusually for someone who primarily is a playmaker, Wirtz is also – to paraphrase former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp – a pressing monster, winning back possession 71 times in the final third last season, including 39 high turnovers – both Bundesliga highs.

Even though he is just 22, the German is already an established international who has racked up almost 200 Bundesliga appearances – winning German footballer of the year awards in 2023 and 2024 and often being described as having an old head on young shoulders.

It is his all-round game intelligence that means Wirtz can be deployed in a variety of roles next season, a positional flexibility that should help evolve Liverpool’s game going forward and make the champions less predictable and harder to beat.

Slot handing Wirtz the keys to No 10?

One of the key factors in Wirtz opting to join Liverpool was reportedly Slot’s vision to play him in the No 10 role next season. The duo met to discuss the move and it is a position that would undoubtedly suit his many strengths as a midfielder who loves to link the play – as shown by his 1,790 final-third passes, the second-most in the Bundesliga last season.

“He is an unbelievably intelligent player who understands spaces between the lines,” ex-Leverkusen assistant director Devin Ozek told Sky Sports, while Leverkusen forward Nathan Tella described his former team-mate as “a creative player who can change the game – he has so much talent, technical ability and an eye for goal, he is just a proper No 10”.

Meanwhile, European football expert Andy Brassell believes playing Wirtz as a No 10 will also help ease the attacking burden on Salah next season.

“We have so few of these No 10s in English football,” he told Sky Sports. “So it will add something totally different to Liverpool, it will take a lot of the attacking burden off Salah.

“So as he gets further into his thirties, he can concentrate more on scoring goals because Wirtz is about the last pass. He has got a great change of pace, he is used to physical attention and the way Liverpool have reconstructed their midfield maybe creates a space where he can have that extra bit of freedom that Xabi Alonso granted him.”

If Wirtz is given license to play in the No 10 position, that could mean a deeper role for Dominik Szoboszlai, perhaps alongside No 6 Ryan Gravenberch, according to former Liverpool captain Jamie Carragher.

“I have been critical of Szoboszlai, I think he does sometimes lack that creativity and Wirtz can play where Szoboszlai does [as a No 10],” he told Sky Sports.

How about as a false nine?

Under Alonso’s expert tactical guidance during the past two-and-a-half years, the versatile Wirtz learned to occupy multiple different positions at the BayArena, one of which was a false nine.

With Diogo Jota injured for much of last season and Darwin Nunez often misfiring in front of goal, Slot himself often utilised Luis Diaz in that role – to great effect, in fact, against Leverkusen in a 4-0 Champions League league-phase win at Anfield in November.

Carragher agrees, saying during the Reds’ 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace on the final day of last season: “Liverpool are almost playing with a false nine today in Diaz and he [Wirtz] can do that.”

The Liverpool head coach even experimented with a 4-2-2-2 formation on occasions in the previous campaign, with Curtis Jones and Szoboszlai playing alongside each other in advanced roles, most notably opting for that system with some success in a statement 2-0 win over Man City at the Etihad Stadium in February.

Could Wirtz get the nod as a left-sided forward?

“Wirtz can play in a number of positions and you look at where he plays for Leverkusen, it is often from the left,” said Carragher of Liverpool’s new big-money signing.

A quick glance at Wirtz’s Bundesliga heat map from last season shows that Alonso did indeed often play him out wide as an inverted winger off the left flank.

That would be an attractive option for Slot, although the Dutchman does currently have Diaz and Cody Gakpo occupying that role, albeit with reported doubts against both their futures at Anfield this summer.

If left-back target Milos Kerkez also arrives from Bournemouth, though, that would allow Wirtz to operate as an inverted left-sided forward, coming inside to link up with the Reds’ other midfielders, while using his incisive, penetrating passes to open up deep-lying defences as the pacy Hungary full-back overlaps on the outside.

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