German media continue venomous vendetta against ‘problem’ Liverpool player accused of ‘solo’ run | OneFootball

One Liverpool player has been subjected to an ongoing vendetta from a European publication accusing him of sabotaging one of his teammates.

Florian Wirtz hasn’t had the most productive of starts to his time at Anfield, with the playmaker’s first 16 Reds appearances yielding no goals and just three assists, and Gary Neville remarked that the 22-year-old ‘looks like a little boy‘ in the Premier League.

However, despite being the subject of such stinging criticism within England, our number 7 was on fire for Germany in their 6-0 drubbing of Slovakia on Monday night as he produced two delightful assists for Leroy Sane.

Salah accused of being a ‘problem for Wirtz and Liverpool’

As detailed by Sport Witness, German publication Sport Bild has attributed Wirtz’s quiet start to life at Liverpool to what they deem to be a self-centred attitude from Mo Salah, who they’ve accused of taking a dislike to his new teammate.

In an editorial titled ‘Solo Salah becomes a problem for Wirtz and Liverpool’, the Egyptian is said to have ‘overlooked’ the 22-year-old and preferring to tee up others to score, noting that all three of his assists this season have been for players ‘who have been with the club longer’.

The Reds’ number 11 is also charged with ‘blocking’ the Germany international from becoming a ‘leader’ within the team due to his ‘stubbornness’, and they added that the 33-year-old now ‘represents the past’ at Anfield.

Finally, they post the rhetorical question ‘Who will dethrone Salah – the club, the coach, or his teammates?’ and talk up the possibility of the long-serving winger departing for the Saudi Pro League next year.

(Photos by George Wood and Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Wirtz would be appalled by such scurrilous allegations about Salah

We’re all for seeing German media stick up for Wirtz amid some of the excessive criticism he’s had to endure in the UK so far, but peddling a scurrilous and unfounded anti-Salah agenda isn’t the right way to go about it.

There’s a school of thought that the Egyptian ‘deprived’ the 22-year-old of an assist by missing a chance to score early in the second half of the 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in October after being set up by a magnificent flick from the Reds’ number 7, but it’d be wrong to individualise such incidents.

We don’t doubt for one second that both players will have been disappointed on a personal level with their scoring returns for the season so far, given the numbers they’ve racked up in previous campaigns, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not trying or that they’re actively conspiring against one another.

Liverpool have been culpable of making costly errors on the pitch over the past couple of months, but it’s very dangerous territory to delve into the realms of accusing teammates of not playing for each other and trying to disrupt the dressing room.

If the Reds are to bounce back and enjoy success this term, it’ll only be through unity on and off the pitch. Sport Bild’s defamation of Salah is completely uncalled for, and Wirtz won’t be thanking them for it either.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Man City press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: