I don’t think it’s quite as black and white as that. Last season was bad for everyone; the collective wasn’t functioning with or without the ball, players weren’t put in a position to succeed. So that’s a good place to start for Iraola, building a strong collective and putting players in a better situation, which I think it looks like he’s doing.
There will be a decision to make though, at some point he might have to decide between Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike, who his big game front two will be. So in that sense I think you’re right, in terms of the time frame, that Wirtz has to improve some things. Especially if Isak keeps scoring.
However, I think it also depends on results and team performance. If Wirtz is part of a team who perform well and win games - the team looking good even without him looking great - that’s what I believe will matter the most.
What really irks me is people going on about his work rate, he is always running and helps out in all phases, just look at his defensive stats, they are excellent for a number 10.
Second one is that people say he hides, nope always shows for the ball and offers angles for passes, sometimes they don’t come or are too late and he gets man and ball.
Honestly there will come a point in this season where he will need to be judged on his output. Hard work is of course a very important aspect of any player and it’s often underrated. But he is not bought for 100mil just to be hardworking, he has to show this season real numbers in stats which will reflect why he is called a generational talent.
Right now, he is nowhere near there. I do see alot of improvement but he will eventually need to be judged on the critical attacking stats.
And I will even go on further to say, that if someone offers 100mil for him right now, it’s less of a dilemma to let him go because he has not proven to be worth anything near that. Yet. So hopefully that will change.
I wish that regarding Wirtz or other expensive players we have, people would be able to forget about the price tag. Florian is just a Liverpool player. His price tag doesn’t come into the equation when Iraola decides how to play him, and what role to give him. Same applies for Isak or Barcola.
I’ll just look at how the team performs as a whole with him in the side. For me, his goal or assist output is secondary as long as he can help the team performing to the best of its potential.
I think the two go hand in hand for a no 10. Unless he transforms himself into a false 9 like Bobby Firmino. He helped the team in the first half, knitting things together, also making space with his runs (against Ipswich). Second half he started losing a lot of balls/duels and became a liability as our midfield two also became tired.
Also, just as an example, if product A is MARKEDLY more expensive than product B, there has to be an assumption of added quality/value up front.
Then you never watched him play in the bundesliga. He was incredible, truly world class. You don’t win the bundesliga player of the year TWICE by playing for a club that’s not Bayern without being ‘generational.’ It simply doesn’t happen. Not in a league where Bayern dominate everything. Hence the term ‘generational’. That he hasn’t hit those heights for us yet is another discussion but it doesn’t detract from how elite a footballer he actually was/is.
In an ideal world, this would be the evaluation taken on every player in world football, unfortunately we’ve all been around the game long enough to know goal involvements are the first thing people look to for attacking players regardless of team performances…they’ll then tally that up in line with their transfer fee (& wages if they want to be petty) and compare with a similiar player to make a point (in Flo’s case it’s usually been Cherki).
I think he could have plenty more but the underlying question is more, is he delivering enough output that should lead to goals.
The answer is definitely no. I know people will say his price doesn´t matter, but it is relevant. It´s relevant because he was bought to be the star of the show. He wasn´t bought to be a backup left back, for example. He is supposed to be the centrepiece of our team, and the best player on the pitch most of the time. He isn´t supposed to be some support cog player.
Right now he looks timid and he´s playing simple ineffective pases, within himself. He is capable of much more and he needs to start acting like it.
I think the team also wasnt set up for Veron, just like ours isn´t for Wirtz. But even with that issue, Veron should have delivered more, and the same is true of Wirtz.
The thing is, we have seen him be better than he is now and how he ended the season. So this first 3 games isnt even matching his higher level achieved with us,
Again, I rate his talents and want us to commit to getting him at his best, but he has to find the courage and swagger inside himself too.
Well XG and XA are mystic meg bullshit to me too (and im skeptical over a lot of stats fans and pundits love now), but I agree that assists don´t tell the full story at all and today he made some good passes that should have lead to goals and didn´t.
Visibly you could see he had a few moments of quality and that´s what we want from him consistently. And yes, agreed. Should have scored his one chance too, even if it was offside.
XA and XAG, is a better measure of creating chances than the assist stat.
You talked about creating chances and he has created a lot but players have not finished them or as I have said been offside.
Look at Barcola today, he is put through 1 v 1 after great interplay and final pass and is on goal centrally and doesn’t even hit the target, so no assist but high XG or XAG, so which is the better measure?
I wouldn´t bother looking at any of those metrics beyond a surface level look to be honest. I think none of them are good enough measures. You won´t see me say he needs to create X assists or ´big chances´ from a stats perspective.
Today he created some decent chances, yes. One for Muñoz and one for Barcola that both should have scored.
But in recent games he hasn´t created many good chances.
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