Florian Wirtz at Liverpool: Unlocked Potential or Systemic Issue?
Florian Wirtz was the name on every big club’s whiteboard last summer. Real Madrid circled him. Bayern Munich hovered. Manchester City pushed hard.
Liverpool got him.
They smashed their transfer record to do it, landing a 22-year-old playmaker many inside the game saw as a future pillar of any elite attack. A British-record £116 million for a player who had lit up the Bundesliga at Bayer Leverkusen and looked ready-made to run a team’s creative department for a decade.
This was supposed to be the signing that bent the Premier League narrative towards Anfield.
It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Not yet.
City’s “Plan B” Takes Centre Stage
While Wirtz has wrestled with adaptation, injuries and role tweaks, the player City turned to instead has exploded. Rayan Cherki, effectively the consolation prize when Wirtz chose Liverpool, is now the one dragging headlines his way.
His display against Chelsea on Sunday was the latest reminder. He tormented them, stitched moves together, and forced Pep Guardiola into public praise.
“Rayan is an extraordinary talent – the second goal, the pass to Marc [Guehi],” Guardiola said. “The problem for Rayan is sometimes he plays in positions too close to Donnarumma, your talent has to be in the final third. Be close to Haaland, close to wingers.
“We will bring the ball to you. It’s not necessary to come down [the pitch].”
That, in a couple of sentences, is the core of the contrast. City know exactly where they want their playmaker to live. High up. Near the danger. Surrounded by runners and finishing power. They move the ball to him, not the other way round.
The numbers back it up. Cherki averages an astonishing 90 touches per 90 minutes in the Premier League this season, leading the league for his position. He is constantly involved, constantly in the thick of City’s possession carousel in the final third.
He wasn’t always that involved. At Lyon last season, Cherki averaged 75 touches per 90. His move to Manchester has supercharged his involvement, not diluted it. City have taken a gifted technician and plugged him into a system that feeds him relentlessly.
Liverpool’s Use of Wirtz
Wirtz’s story is very different.
At Leverkusen, he was the hub. He averaged 86 touches per 90 minutes, a figure that led the Bundesliga for his position. The ball gravitated to him. He dictated tempo, angles, and the final pass.
At Liverpool, that gravitational pull has weakened. He averages just 71 touches per 90. In raw terms, that’s 15 fewer than his Leverkusen days and around 20 fewer than Cherki is seeing at City.
Those are 20 lost chances to turn, to slip a runner through, to shoot, to shape a game.
This isn’t about Wirtz shrinking. It’s about structure.
Under Arne Slot, Wirtz has spent much of his debut season starting from the left, only recently drifting more consistently into his preferred central attacking midfield role. His return is respectable on paper – six goals and five assists in 43 appearances in all competitions as of mid-April – but it doesn’t scream “record-breaking centrepiece” just yet.
His creative metrics still stand up. He ranks in the 94th percentile for chances created, a reminder that when Liverpool actually get him on the ball in the right areas, he delivers. He has also begun to find a groove after a difficult bedding-in period, highlighted by an assist in the 2–0 win over Fulham on April 11.
He is fit again after a back injury that disrupted his rhythm in late February and early March, and his international form offers a glimpse of what Liverpool thought they were buying. During the March break, he scored twice and laid on two more in Germany’s 4–3 win over Switzerland. Give him the ball, give him responsibility, and he responds.
So why does it still feel like Liverpool haven’t unlocked him?
A System Problem, Not a Talent Problem
Guardiola’s comments about Cherki could just as easily be read as a manual for how to use Wirtz. Keep your creators high. Let them live in the pockets between the lines. Bring the ball to them instead of asking them to drop deep and knit everything together.
City do that almost by muscle memory. Their structure funnels possession into Cherki in areas where one touch can kill you.
Liverpool, by contrast, have too often left Wirtz stranded between roles – part wide forward, part No 10, part extra midfielder. The result is a player who roams to find the game instead of receiving it where he is most dangerous. The touch data is the symptom. The positional use is the cause.
This is “very much a Liverpool problem,” as the numbers show. Cherki’s involvement has climbed since leaving Lyon. Wirtz’s has dipped since leaving Leverkusen. One club has built a stage around their new creator; the other is still rearranging the set.
Liverpool insist there is no doubt about his status. Internally, they describe Wirtz as “untouchable” and a cornerstone of their long-term project. Interest from Real Madrid, Manchester City and Bayern Munich hasn’t changed that stance. They believe the best is yet to come once he fully adjusts to the Premier League’s physical edge and Slot settles on a stable attacking framework.
But belief alone won’t close the gap to City.
Guardiola has laid out the blueprint in plain sight: trust your artists in the final third, and then feed them relentlessly. Liverpool paid a record fee for one of the finest of that breed.
The question now is simple: will they reshape their football to suit Florian Wirtz, or keep wondering why the player everyone wanted looks more alive in other people’s systems than in their own?
