After Liverpool’s 0-3 thrashing by Manchester City on Sunday, former player Jamie Carragher lashed into their £116m signing Florian Wirtz, calling for the German to be dropped from the team.
Since arriving at Merseyside last season, Wirtz hasn’t really set the world on fire, scoring just 5 goals and assisting just 5 as well in 39 appearances in the Premier League.
‘I’m going to go back to Florian Wirtz, because I was critical of him after the last game Liverpool played at Bournemouth. I was then criticised a little bit by Liverpool supporters for putting a negative slant on it. But what I did say was it could be the last hope if Jurgen Klopp could get his arm around him when he was with Germany. He played really well for Germany under Jurgen Klopp. But he has come here today, I’m looking at the game with no Isak and no Gakpo, our two best attackers this season. We need Barcola and we need Wirtz to step up and help Munoz and Koumas at the top of the pitch. Koumas and Munoz were better than the two £100m players,” Carragher said to Sky Sports.
‘That can’t be right. It’s not right. It wasn’t a decision for anyone in the stadium when Liverpool went down to 10 men. And the big bright spark was Gravenberch. He started badly and was taken out the team. There is no way Wirtz should be playing ahead of Gravenberch. What Florian Wirtz is doing for Liverpool is not enough right now. He’s played 55, 60 games for Liverpool. If we were looking at Barcola, he has played four or five. You would want more but hold your horses. If you were critical of him, it would be over the top, but not the guy that has played 60 games. He shouldn’t be in the Liverpool team right now. I don’t want to hammer Liverpool players. But we’re not saying this after five-ten games, we’re saying this after 50-60 games,” he added.
Wirtz was anonymous yet again for Liverpool on Sunday as league leaders Manchester City pummeled them with second-half goals from Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki.