‘Neat and tidy’ Wirtz among £320m Liverpool trio blasted by Carragher – ‘They’re not humble’ | OneFootball

Jamie Carragher has slammed “neat and tidy” Florian Wirtz as one of three Liverpool stars who need to be more “humble” and do “an awful lot more” to “step up” and pick up the mantle from Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah.

Arne Slot’s side were put to the sword by Paris Saint-Germain in their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday as goals from Desire Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia secured a 2-0 win for the Ligue 1 giants which flattered Liverpool on a night in which they were completely outplayed by the hosts.

Carragher launched an impassioned defence of Van Dijk, who he claims has never looked so “uncomfortable” as Slot stuck him in the middle of a back three, as he ripped into Ibrahima Konate and the Reds manager.

And the CBS Sports pundit also took aim at Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, who arrived for a combined fee of £320m last summer, and aren’t working anywhere near hard enough off the ball for the Reds.

Carragher said: “I said at the start of the season, and nothing’s changed in that, what you’re seeing here at Liverpool, and there are lots of different things that are wrong, but you’re watching three all-time greats, the goalkeeper, Alisson, he’s always had injuries but he’s having more now, he’s not the same goalkeeper, Virgil van Dijk as we know is not quite the same, who is at 34? Mo Salah is the same, who is at 33 as an attacking player?

“I’m never going to criticise those players, the legends, they’ve done so much for the club and they’ve carried players. That’s not criticising the other players because that’s Thierry [Henry] at Arsenal, you always have four or five great players who carry the rest with them.

“So what you’re watching here now is Salah and Van Dijk, who were absolutely out of this world last season, carried Liverpool to the title, they’re not the same players and the others are not quite good enough to step up.

“And then you’ve also got new players coming into the team and I think they’ve got away with quite a bit of criticism actually, the new signings, because we’ve almost said they’re new signings, they’re getting up to speed.

“Ekitike was really poor tonight, I said before the game, and I include Wirtz and Isak in this, to be a top player for Liverpool as an attacking player, you need to be arrogant on the ball but humble off the ball, they’re not humble off the ball, they don’t do enough off the ball and that’s why it’s easy to play against Liverpool right now.

“Three legendary players come to the end of their careers, new players come in and not knowing what exactly they need to do to play for Liverpool right now.

“I include Isak who came on, Ekitike and Florian Wirtz who has got to do a lot more, an awful lot more.

“The best way you can describe Florian Wirtz right now, he’s got £125 million, is that he’s neat and tidy.”