Wirtz: “[Liverpool] Have a Lot of Things to Do Better”

Liverpool’s pre-season is in proper gear with news of a few of the World Cup participants beginning to filter back into the club’s preparations. Among the group rejoining is German international, Florian Wirtz. The attacking midfielder had a disappointing World Cup campaign, with the German side getting knocked out in the Round of 32 – coincidentally eliminated on the same day as his Liverpool teammates on the Netherlands.

Now, he’ll look to shake the truncated tournament run and look to improve upon

an inaugural season on Merseyside that some – not me – would label a disappointment. That begins now as the attacking star has begun preparations and is expected to figure in the pre-season match against Leeds on Sunday.

Speaking to the official site on Friday, Wirtz expressed some thoughts regarding last year.

“Yeah, of course I wasn’t happy at all – about the season, I mean. I was not unhappy every day when I came to training, but I think we expected much more last season. I think we start from zero this season. Also here with this training camp, it’s a new start. We have a lot of things to do better this season and I’m very excited for season two.”

While I can understand that folks found his debut disappointing, I thought there were some mitigating circumstances to temper some of that. First and most importantly, there was a marked improvement during the second half of the season, with Wirtz managing to find more opportunities to work a breakthrough and either provide an assist or latch onto the end of a movement to notch a goal. There was always going to be a bit of an adjustment period for anyone moving from the Bundesliga to the Premier League and the most heartening thing about his performances last year is that they tended to improve over time.

Besides that, the injuries to the attackers around him – namely to Alexander Isak and eventually to Hugo Ekitike – meant that the players that might have provided him the kind of support to force defenders out of space simply weren’t available. On top of that, Arne Slot simply couldn’t figure out the right combination of players or tactics to make use of such a talented roster. It was a collective disappointment and I’d personally stop short of going full-send on applying that label to Wirtz.

But there’s not two ways about it: this year needs to be better.

That’s why it’s so encouraging to see Wirtz in camp and ready to put in the work. Hopefully the short break means he’s coming in sharper and more ready to come good on all of the promise that Liverpool brass invested so heavily in.