Player Analysis: The Florian Wirtz you want vs the one you have

September 24, 2026 Olaoluwa Nwobodo 1 Comment

The only thing worse than realizing Florian Wirtz is not in bad form, is realizing he’s in normal form. Not good, not bad, just normal. I know this is not what you want to hear, but fans often make the mistake of misprofiling big signings, and then they get disappointed.

Wirtz is a brilliant player, in more ways than critics realize, however, many may be expecting more from him than he can give. The 23-year-old made a big money move to Liverpool in the 2025 transfer window. His first season was certainly turbulent, as he joined when then-manager Arne Slot was confused about what plans he had for the squad.

He started getting criticized last season, which is normal for a big money signing who didn’t light up the world. The issue, is that he may have been getting criticized for the wrong things.

Was Florian Wirtz supposed to be a creative mastermind?

Identifying players’ strengths is important. Players always come under fire, especially when you spend big money on them, however, criticism should correspond to what the player is good at.

For example, Erling Haaland is a £525,000/week player, but if Manchester City started struggling to create goalscoring chances, it’d be silly to blame the Norway striker, simply because he takes up a large chunk of the wage bill.

There are appropriate things to criticise players for, but we first have to know what these things are. Before Wirtz was signed, many saw him as a chief creator type of player. A player who could take control of a team’s attacking play and create chances for others, similar to Bruno Fernandes and Kevin De Bruyne.

What’s more? He played a similar role at Bayer Leverkusen, and so you cannot blame people for assuming that as his best role. However, important factors were not considered.

Why Wirtz’s Bundesliga numbers were a wrong indicator of his best role at Liverpool

In the Bundesliga, you don’t need to be a world-class or Grade A creator to consistently put up double digits in big chances and assists. Jadon Sancho is an example. In each of his last three seasons in the Bundesliga, he created 13, 19, and 14 big chances. He also provided 14, 16 and 11 assists.

He never replicated any of these double digit big chances and assists outside the German league.

This was predictable too. A player creating 2.1, 2.2 and 2.7 big chances in the Bundesliga is clearly not an elite creator. In fact, Haaland, in his last season at Borussia Dortmund created 12 big chances, while leading his team in goals scored.

Wirtz was doing something similar. The Germany international averaged 2.2 chances created per game in his last three seasons in Germany. He also averaged 13 big chances created per season. These are good, but not elite level, especially for the Bundesliga. This means you should reasonably expect those numbers to drop in a tougher, more intense league.

Who actually is Florian Wirtz?

As I mentioned earlier, Wirtz is a brilliant player. This intelligence shows in all aspects of his game. However, he is more of an attacking midfielder who gets on the end of attacking moves, or starts them, but he’s not the best man to make the final pass.

His numbers across both leagues show this. Since he came to the Premier League, the former Leverkusen midfielder has consistently ranked high for quality of shots. This is something he also did impressively well in Germany.

Last season he ranked 5th for shots on target per 90 minutes, but ranked third for total xGOT. Granted, he didn’t take that many shots, but there are reasons for that. He consistently ranked high in those areas in Germany too.

He’s also a player that likes to shoot. Of course, there aren’t as many opportunities for that in England.

Due to his intelligence and technical skill, he often ranks high in expected assists (xA), as he often passes to players in good positions. His creation and xA numbers weren’t impressive last season, unsurprisingly.

How will Wirtz best contribute to Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool?

I’m glad you asked. Iraola’s side already plays a 4-2-3-1, and there’s no real need to change. However, it may be more ideal to move to a 4-3-3, where Dominik Szoboszlai and Wirtz can play together in the midfield.

Szoboszlai is the best creator in the lineup, and should be the creator-in-chief. Wirtz would then be responsible for finding shooting positions, while the striker does his thing. Liverpool has tall center forwards that can occupy defenders. Iraola should use this to his advantage.

The former Leverkusen forward will still create chances, but he should not be the guy Liverpool turns to whenever they need chances to be created.

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Conclusion

I said earlier that there are appropriate things to create players for, and dribbling is something fans can criticize Wirtz for. He has averaged between 51 and 53% dribbles completed over the past five league seasons. This season so far, he’s averaging 46%.

At the end of the day, it’s tempting to just want…more, from a marquee signing, but misprofiling players will lead to frustration. That frustration then makes it hard to evaluate players fairly.