‘No concerns’ – World Cup winner bites back at Florian Wirtz critics with emphatic statement | OneFootball

Florian Wirtz hasn’t quite hit the ground running at Liverpool since his £116m transfer from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer, but a legend of German football is convinced that the 22-year-old will silence his critics at Anfield.

Since providing an assist on his official Reds debut in the Community Shield, the playmaker hasn’t provided a goal contribution in eight subsequent appearances and has already had to face stinging criticism over the level of his performances at his new club.

Jamie Carragher has been among the more prominent naysayers, declaring after the defeat to Galatasaray on Tuesday that our number 7 is ‘not at the races at all‘, while both he and Steve Nicol have called for the Germany international to be taken out of the starting line-up.

Rudi Voller not worried about Wirtz’s form at Liverpool

Despite the unflattering reviews in anglophone media, though, Rudi Voller (who won the World Cup with West Germany as a player in 1990 and took the unified nation to the final as manager 12 years later) is insistent that Wirtz will go on to justify his transfer fee and prove his worth at Liverpool.

The ex-Leverkusen sporting director told Bild [via Sport Witness]: “Florian shouldn’t let himself get carried away. I have no concerns about that. He’ll show the English what he’s made of.

“Florian is playing in a new league and a new club. These are normal adjustment problems. Almost every professional has them. I have no doubt that with his running and playing ability, he will make the breakthrough.”

(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Wirtz should be granted time to truly integrate at Liverpool

As football writer John Cross put it (via Liverpool Echo), the lack of goal contributions from Wirtz so far at Liverpool ‘is a worry’, and he’s faced accusations of upsetting the balance of the team as Slot seeks to find the right place for him without it detracting from the rhythm that the Reds had last season.

Voller rightly argues that it can take time for a young player (remember, the playmaker is still only 22) coming to a new club in a different country to truly settle, and the glare of scrutiny is blinding when said player costs £100m+ and is representing the champions of the world’d foremost domestic league.

However, Henry Winter has sensibly drawn comparisons with Peter Beardsley, who wasn’t an instant success when he came to Anfield in 1987 but went on to become a genuine great in L4.

Alas, in this era of round-the-clock media coverage, hyperbolic social media opinion and vlogging, Wirtz has already been sentenced to the billing of ‘big-money flop’ by an unforgiving audience whose knives were drawn from the moment that his transfer to Liverpool was announced.

It’s fair to state that so far he hasn’t looked like the player we all thought we were getting in the summer, but as Voller reminded everyone, the 22-year-old has the quality to prove his critics wrong and become a roaring success on Merseyside.

Hopefully we’ll see him do that sooner rather than later…upcoming games against Chelsea and Manchester United would be an ideal window to sprinkle his stardust!