Crazy Florian Wirtz numbers point fingers at Liverpool

Florian Wirtz hasn't hit the ground running at Liverpool since joining in the summer. His numbers certainly point fingers at the team.

There was quite rightly an incredible amount of hype when Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz in the summer. The German playmaker is one of the most in-demand stars across world football, already showing remarkable abilities at just 22.

Because again, he’s 22. Wirtz has already been the star of a title-winning team in Germany and twice won Player of the Year for his performances.

Doing that at such a young age is sensational. That’s ultimately why Liverpool didn’t have an issue with spending over £100m to get him.

However, Wirtz has not yet delivered what we thought he would. This is a player who reached double digits for goals and assists in each of the last two season - the only other player across Europe’s top five leagues to do that was Mo Salah.

Well, we haven’t seen any goals yet and the only assist came in the Community Shield. It simply hasn’t been the return we all expected.

One look at his numbers, however, and there’s a big tell that this isn’t Wirtz’s fault. The finger is instead pointed at Liverpool.

Florian Wirtz's start

So Wirtz isn’t affecting games the way anyone hoped. But that really shouldn’t be a surprise when you look at some very basic numbers.

For instance, look at where he’s getting the ball. Wirtz averaged 85 and 80 touches per 90 minutes across his last two season - that’s now down to 59 touches in this campaign.

It’s a dramatic reduction and the effect that has is crazy. Because the touches Wirtz has in the midfield third are down but not that down. We’ve seen him drop from 34 and 31 to 25 this season.

It’s a drop, and a bad one, but absolutely nothing compared to his touches in the attacking third. Wirtz is having twenty fewer touches than he’s used to in the most dangerous part of the pitch.

He’d average 46 and 45 across the two Bayer Leverkusen campaigns that brought the Bundesliga title and a second-placed finish. Now he’s down to 27. Wirtz is receiving thirty (30) fewer passes from teammates than he was in that title campaign and progressive passes (i.e. significant, line-breaking forward passes) have dropped from 11.6 per 90 to 6.3.

That naturally has a massive effect on what Wirtz can do. He’s involved in creating the fewest shots of his career since he was 17 years old.

What’s perhaps the maddest thing to see, though, is that Wirtz’s passing isn’t all that down. Well, he’s averaging 20 fewer per 90, of course, but still managing to play as many passes into the final third as he usually would (though, this might be because he’s sitting deeper just to get the ball).

Even his progressive passes are roughly where they would have been. What’s down more than anything, though, is the number of short passes he’s able to make and his carrying stats.

Liverpool, then, are getting about as much out of Wirtz as they can expect to when they’re not actually getting him the ball. Let alone getting him the ball in good positions.

Asking any player to perform like that is difficult and almost impossible. Until the Reds fix that, they will not get the £100m player they paid for.

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All stats per Fbref.