Incredible Liverpool star is back, Andoni Iraola will be over the moon

One Liverpool star is back and Andoni Iraola will be absolutely thrilled. It should just be up, up, up from here.

Andoni Iraola will be watching the international break closely and not just to keep track of the injuries. Liverpool have suffered two of those so far, with both Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo ruled out.

That's a particularly difficult problem as those two have unequivocally been Liverpool's two best attackers. In fact, Gakpo has assisted all of Isak's goals - the Reds are dependent on them.

And so missing that chunk of the attack (which, again, is basically all of the attack) threatens the season. We're still hopeful that both will return and face world-beating cheats Manchester City but Iraola may be forced to manage the minutes of one or both.

Which means relying on someone else to lead the attack over the coming weeks. Fortunately, there's a clear candidate.

Florian Wirtz is back

Florian Wirtz put in an outstanding performance for Germany on Thursday evening as his country beat Serbia 2-0. This was Jurgen Klopp’s first win in charge of the national side and he put faith in Wirtz to be the main man in a second-string side.

And did he ever step up. Both goals came from genius pieces of skill by the Liverpool star, the first being a mazy run inside the penalty area that saw a shot crash off the post. Tom Bischof was there to finish it.

Then second was all Wirtz. He received a pass inside the box with a truly outrageous first touch to take a defender out and set up a shot. He then rolled it into the corner for 2-0.

This was the Wirtz show, really. One goal, one (sort of) assist and six created chances. Klopp gave him the keys and he delivered what is pretty undoubtedly his best performance since leaving Bayer Leverkusen.

The great hope at Anfield when Klopp took the Germany job was that he might light a new fire under Wirtz. It certainly looks like that’s the case, even from match no.1.

Now we just need the player to keep up this return to form and deliver a performance like that for Liverpool. Anything halfway resembling this one would feel like a statement from Wirtz - and there’s no better team to do it against than the cheats.