Going with the Flo

It’s happening.

Yes, I’ve already written about Florian Wirtz. Liverpool don’t sign £120m footballers every week.

As that title suggested, he’s ‘The Gamechanger’. Well of course! You don’t smash your transfer record by 50 million pounds or so for a Steady Eddy.

On last Friday night’s Anfield Wrap free YouTube show, the contributors depicted the record-shattering transfer as the most exciting in the history of the club—at least in their living memory. Pretty difficult to disagree. Even at 22, Wirtz’s pedigree speaks for itself. Thiago Alcantara was footballing royalty but 29. Torres’s purchase was tremendously exciting; that iteration of Liverpool were far from as complete as this side, though. The 1995 signing of Stan Collymore, for £8.5m, served as a British transfer record in a fee resembling £133m in modern times through inflation. Though Stan was special at Forest, there was some skepticism over that one given that Liverpool had previously broken that ‘feat’ twice in the four years prior and were on a nosedive down the table.

There’s no catch with the German. The eye test informs us he’s scintillating, the data portrays him in even brighter light. Good luck finding a relevant metric where Wirtz doesn’t shine—you won’t.

Liverpool’s former director of research, Ian Graham, infamously echoes the line: “Replacing a 30th-percentile player in your squad, with a 70th-percentile player, gains you roughly 0.08 goal difference per game, and that equates to roughly two points per season.”

Florian places in the 98th and 99th percentile for the majority of attacking metrics. Perhaps 84 points is just the floor for Arne Slot’s Liverpool.

We’re paying for both the here-and-now and the future. That’s important. Manchester United’s big-money marquee signing in the same position, Matheus Cunha, is 26 and unlikely to improve. Dani Olmo impressed me greatly last season, as Barcelona’s solitary summer signing for £51m, but probably won’t take that next step into the upper echelons of the game at 27.

Leverkusen’s #10 is already at the top. We’re not signing what he ‘could’ be. On a par with Lamine Yamal and Vinicius Jr this season, Wirtz is an elite footballer poised to figurehead the Reds’s crusade towards an era of sustained dominance. Okay, calm down.

I want to dig into exactly how Xabi Alonso platformed Wirtz and essentially steered him towards such heights during his near three-year-long tenure. But first, it’s really significant to point out the value in a footballer who grows year-in, year-out.

Surely, it’s impossible to outdo claiming the Bundesliga Player of the Season award, in an unprecedented Invincible campaign? Right? Nope. Statistically, Wirtz has been a more effective ball carrier, a better dribbler, more efficient in the final third, set up more goals, and has enjoyed considerably greater underlying numbers (xG and xA) this year. It genuinely goes under the radar, in Wirtz discourse, that the 2003-born midfielder’s ascension was not in any way stifled by the ACL tear in 2022. He returned in the December of a campaign, after an agonising 266 day setback, and immediately found himself among Europe’s best creators. Freak.

“Florian’s return to pre-injury performance levels will take even longer. Typically, I’m looking at the second season back as the key benchmark." - Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT, a physiotherapist and sports scientist in March 2022

Brar insisted, in the quoted article above, that Leverkusen’s best course of action was to adhere to the 8-9 month return timeline for their then-18-year-old star. This is due to his research suggesting that a rushed return, in seven months or less, results in 7x increase in reinjury risk for footballers under the age of 25. Over the last three years, Wirtz has been ruled out of just 13 matches through injury with the longest of these absences being a period of a singular month. Bayer reaped the rewards of their caution. Now it looks as though it’s Liverpool’s turn to benefit.

Xabi wasn’t at the helm just yet when Wirtz laid on that stretcher at Köln. Leverkusen were plodding along nicely under Gerardo Seoane, sitting 3rd in the Bundesliga heading into the final run-in. A *lot* happens while he’s rehabilitating—Bayer qualify for the Champions League, are slammed for an uninspiring transfer window, start the campaign horrendously with one win in eight, and sack Seoane to be replaced by Alonso in October as they sit second-bottom of the league table.

Wirtz becomes the ‘main man’ under Alonso almost immediately upon return; the attacking midfielder plays 25 times in the second half of the campaign as Leverkusen skyrocket, from the foot of the Bundesliga, into 6th to secure Europa League Qualification. It was love at first sight for Alonso. Very much his type of footballer. He didn’t hold back with his praise. 'We’re clearly a better team with Flo. We play better. We have better connections between the lines, between players,' he stated. 'He’s the player that makes the difference for us, and we need him,' he added.

As I’ve already alluded to, performing at this level in the wake of an injury like that is simply outrageous. (Data via Fbref)

I’m sure you know that Xabi Alonso set Leverkusen up in a 3-4-2-1. Likewise, you’ll be familiar that Wirtz operated as his trusty ‘left attacking midfielder’. But how did this pairing lead to such magic for Die Werkself?

Legendary, and World Cup winning, German manager Joachim Low puts it down to trust. Alonso’s system ‘evolved’ (potentially regressed) into something more rigid and pragmatic in 24/25, but he never once looked to shackle his maverick. He allowed Wirtz to be somewhat of a free spirit from day one. Joachim believes that his trust allowed Wirtz to thrive and play with a natural confidence that ‘can’t be taught’.

If a manager keeps Florian in one fixed spot, to be blunt, their ‘tactics’ are counter productive and deserve to be chucked into the nearest bonfire. Like buying a sports car only to forever remain in first gear.

One of his most valuable abilities is receiving when opposed (even more intensely than the photo example) and he will be Liverpool’s most gifted footballer on the ball. You let him drop deep and come short. Sometimes it really is that simple. My prediction, as it stands, is that the club will not sign a new number nine; I expect Wirtz to cosplay as some sort of ‘false nine’, or the return of the double #10 system which would see him alongside Dominik Szoboszlai up top. Regardless of how advanced Wirtz stands on paper, Arne will almost certainly encourage these actions.

That very screenshot could resemble an extremely reliable pattern of play for the new-look Champions next season. Not Granit Xhaka but Alexis Mac Allister to combine with as the left central midfielder. Liverpool don’t use traditional ‘wingbacks’ like Bayer did—they’re set for the introduction of flying full backs, however. Milos Kerkez, should the deal crawl over the line, will more than likely possess a not too dissimilar heatmap to that of Alejandro Grimaldo, next season.

And, of course, he’s not inclined to pop it off to a teammate either. He’ll effortlessly manipulate the ball to roll out in any direction—turning quickly to drive into space. British transfer record footballer things.

Florian naturally draws in a crowd. Opposition central defenders and holding midfielders, depending on the system, are repeatedly pulled out as they aggressively ‘jump’ on him to restrict the German’s ability to receive and travel. In case you live under a rock, Milos Kerkez is rapid. Jeremie Frimpong is even quicker. Play a high line against the 2025/26 edition of Liverpool at your peril; those third-man-runs from the new full back duo will eat it alive.

I’m not at all advocating for Wirtz to be deployed out-left, it’s a pretty emphatic waste of his talent, however his regular tendency to drift into wide areas is food for thought. Cody Gakpo is solely a wide man these days. There are no galaxy brain ideas, from Manchester City’s new assistant coach, for the Dutchman to be a Roberto Firmino tribute act anymore. That’s Cody’s space. Arne’s more than switched on; both him and the backroom staff have evidenced that they’re far too intelligent to not plan for the possibilities of players restricting each other’s space. Or, more simply, getting in the way of one another.

"He seems ideal for Liverpool. The system of play there has pace, vertical direction and a clear allocation of roles within the team that should suit him really well. Of course, I would have liked to see Wirtz in the Bayern jersey, but I can understand him moving elsewhere. For one thing, Arne Slot wants to develop a position with him, not just fill it." - Phillip Lahm on Florian Wirtz, via The Athletic

This graphic highlights the effectiveness of Wirtz’s passes through the use of the xT (Expected Threat) metric in every zone on the pitch, from the 2023/24 Bundesliga season. It’s clear as day that he thrives, above all, in those half spaces. His game is so refined that I’m positive he’d still produce the goods even as a touchline winger—that’s certainly not what Liverpool are buying, though.

Elite midfielders like Wirtz complete various types of dangerous passes. Several times per game. They can cross the ball, progress the ball into the final third and complete passes within the final third. Essentially, they’re volume machines with regards to the creation of high-quality chances. Even when he initially broke through as a very slight 17-year-old, Wirtz still placed as a decent passer (relatively in the Bundesliga) before making the jump towards the elite within two years.

These statistics aren’t overly common so I’ll use the glossary via the data source, which they were taken from, One-versus-One. They paint the picture very well, though! Attacking threat simply measures the player’s ability to create dangerous situations in the final third—a score created through a mixture of several factors: touches in the box, progressive passes, expected goals (xG), and shot quality. To be honest, it’s very similar to expected threat (xT), which determines how likely a possession is to lead to a goal based on movement and passing patterns.

Wirtz is at the heart of everything, for both club and country. Whether he’s the orchestrator from deep or the receiver, sitting in his comfortable pockets, he’s a magnet for creating high-quality chances and just generally applying attacking pressure.

‘Sense of space’ wasn’t something which I was familiar with until delving into the fantastic website—boasting an incredible amount of recent Bundesliga data. So what does that measure? It looks at the number of successful offensive actions in which a player is found as a receiver; it’s very necessary to stress that an opposition player *must* be bypassed in order for it to be an applicable action towards the metric.

I doubt Florian’s got the ‘Bundesliga Sense of Space’ trophy on show in his home, but it’s a really useful way of emphasising his value as both the receiver and creator in the final third. Constantly finding himself in advantageous positions where defensive lines have been taken apart is tremendously encouraging. We know that he excels at drawing defenders in before exploiting the space in behind—he also manipulates the defenders through that change of pace (accelerating then decelerating and vice versa).

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Liverpool are going with the flow to sign Flo.

W̶h̶e̶n̶ I̶ s̶t̶a̶r̶t̶e̶d̶ w̶r̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ t̶h̶i̶s̶, t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ w̶a̶s̶ s̶o̶m̶e̶ o̶p̶t̶i̶m̶i̶s̶m̶ o̶n̶ m̶y̶ e̶n̶d̶ t̶h̶a̶t̶ a̶ d̶e̶a̶l̶ w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ h̶a̶v̶e̶ b̶e̶e̶n̶ s̶t̶r̶u̶c̶k̶ b̶y̶ n̶o̶w̶. H̶o̶p̶e̶f̶u̶l̶l̶y̶ s̶o̶o̶n̶e̶r̶ r̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ t̶h̶a̶n̶ l̶a̶t̶e̶r̶…

That’s awkward. A deal has been struck. Thank you, Fabrizio.

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