Florian Wirths was a thorn in Liverpool’s side and Gary Neville said he looked “like a boy” in the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City.
Wirtz, who signed for £100m from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer and whose transfer fee could rise to £116m, has struggled to adapt to the Premier League and is yet to register a goal or assist in 11 games in the competition.
Neville said Wirts had a “really bad day” in the heavy defeat against City and his patience was running thin for the 22-year-old to deliver on his promise. As a result, the champions remain in 8th place after 11 games.
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Premier League match highlights between Manchester City and Liverpool
“Wurtz is a problem,” the Sky Sports pundit said on the Gary Neville Podcast.
“Let’s just say it like this. It’s a problem. He’s over £100 million. And to be fair, I said a few weeks ago that (Milos) Kerkes looked like a little boy out there. I thought Wirtz looked like a little boy out there today. That can’t be true.”
He added: “We’ve been tiptoeing towards him over the last few months because he’s young and coming to a new country, but he’s worth over £100m so he’ll have to step up quickly.”
“He obviously has something, he’s a really good player, he’s technically great, but he was hurt today by Matheus Nunez and the other players.
“I was really worried about his performance because he was getting thrown around on the pitch and didn’t perform well in terms of quality.”
Wirtz didn’t fit in right away at Liverpool.
Neville said Liverpool needed to find a way to get the best out of Wirtz, who has his sights set more on home in the Champions League since moving to Anfield.
Liverpool manager Arne Slott, who started using Wirtz in the center, has moved him back to his preferred position on the left wing for the past two games. He performed well against Real Madrid but returned to his shell at City.
“He’s a German international of great standing, but he looks quite short for what you would expect from a top-level physical game in the Premier League,” Neville added.
“They’ve got to get him up to speed, they’ve got to instill a little bit of tenacity in him and they’ve got to give him a little bit of something that means he starts to get back into shape, because what they have to do is stick with him and continue to be persistent.”
Neville slams Liverpool’s performance at City
Liverpool are eight points behind leaders Arsenal after 11 games.
Liverpool suffered a crushing defeat at City on Sunday with goals from Erling Haaland, Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku, handing the defending champions their fifth defeat in 11 Premier League games.
Arsenal, who lead the league, are eight points behind Liverpool and behind rivals Manchester United on goal difference.
“I thought it was a really, really poor performance. One of the worst performances I’ve seen from a Liverpool team in a long time,” Neville said.
“It was like they didn’t know what to do. I think they were worried.
“They basically need to take a hard look at themselves because they are a group of players who have achieved high standards and know how to win things. And they will know that they are not far from there at the moment.”
Another disappointing day for Liverpool
Neville says that, like Weurts, Liverpool are saving their best performances for the Champions League because the physicality of the domestic game became too much for them, which will be a big concern for Slott.
“The tempo of their game wasn’t great,” Neville said. “They looked really, really short physically during the game, they looked physically short in terms of running, they looked physically short in terms of just really putting on muscle.
“If I were Arne Slott watching that team, I’d be worried physically. There’s some guys on the team that don’t look like they’re going to run, and I always think when you go on a losing streak you start doubting everything.
“That’s a mistake. We obviously have some good players with great attitudes, so it’s not the time to throw the baby out here, but Slott is going to have to reflect next week and figure out how to fix the issues both forward and defensively.”
“They looked terrible at the back. I thought they messed up today and I thought City could score a lot of goals. They weren’t good enough up front, they didn’t have the combination.”
