Arne Slot had decided to drop Florian Wirtz for the Merseyside derby even before he produced his finest performance to date as a £100m signing, in the win over Atletico Madrid. Or that was the implication, anyway. Slot suggested after beating Everton that he had identified the local affair as the most intense game of the week, prioritised it and worked backwards in his selection.
And so, for the first time, Wirtz was a substitute for Liverpool. Which, at some stage, was going to happen. Slot realises he has to rotate more this season. Before long, there will be few ever-present starters in the big matches. So the significance may have lain with who played instead. Slot reverted to the familiar, to his old firm, of Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai. In the process, he underlined the dilemma Wirtz’s arrival has posed. The German is the disruptor to a title-winning trio. He and Liverpool have to adapt to each other and, against Atletico, there were encouraging signs.
But it wasn’t simply nostalgia that prompted Slot to turn back to the recent past; he had actually done so for the final half-hour against Atletico too, shifting Wirtz to the left wing for a quarter of an hour before he came off. As a No 10, the £100m man may leave Liverpool looking top-heavy, tottering too far forwards when they concede and lack control.
Slot has a quest to restore balance and ballast to a side who have given up three 2-0 leads this season and, including the Community Shield, conceded nine goals in seven games. There has not been a sudden shift to frugality: Atletico’s second goal came after Mac Allister’s introduction while Everton denied Liverpool a clean sheet on Saturday. But there may have been a greater sense of equilibrium. And, in another echo of last season, Curtis Jones came on in midfield: Wirtz’s cameo was on the left wing. Slot has often namechecked him as an option there.
But there is a logic to the tried and trusted. Gravenberch has been a talisman of late. “He is in the form of his life,” said Virgil van Dijk. Szoboszlai has been arguably Liverpool’s best player this season, whether with a surprising starring role at right-back in August or with his response to Wirtz’s arrival. Less of a flair player than the former Bayer Leverkusen man, he offers more physicality which, in turn, helps give Liverpool solidity in midfield. Each, as Slot says, does some of Mohamed Salah’s defensive duties.
Each, perhaps, is better equipped to do that than Wirtz who, in turn, is adjusting from a freer role in Leverkusen’s 3-4-3 formation. “We ask a bit more from him off the ball and defensively as well,” Slot on Wednesday. Wirtz’s creativity as a No 10 was apparent against Atletico; he fashioned five chances. Yet his only assist to date came four minutes into the Community Shield, while he is not yet among Liverpool’s 10 scorers this season. Other measures – his runs off the ball and into the final third – show both a work rate and that some of his efforts are not being reflected on the scoresheet.
Indeed, seven of Liverpool’s 14 goals in Premier League and Champions League this season have come without Wirtz on the field; five after he was substituted then two on Saturday before he came on. He has played 81 percent of minutes (albeit without including the many in injury time) and only been around for 50 percent of the goals. Liverpool’s dramatics and heroics have not tended to involve Wirtz (or, for that matter, Alexander Isak).
Perhaps that is not entirely surprising. Wirtz was headhunted to be a difference-maker; but it also true that he is different, to the players who went before, but also in the context of Liverpool’s summer recruitment. Everyone else was a replacement of sorts, in some cases an upgrade. Isak and Hugo Ekitike, for instance, are two strikers to replace Darwin Nunez and the late Diogo Jota, the full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez arriving for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Kostas Tsimikas.
But while Harvey Elliott eventually went, almost three months after Wirtz came, the Englishman was only a substitute until after the Premier League was won; he was part of Plan B, not Plan A. Wirtz represented a fundamental change, an attempt to recalibrate.
But if there are teething troubles in a period of transition, the Merseyside derby showed there are times when it makes sense to stick with what they know. It will be instructive how often in the tougher tests Slot opts for the power and experience of the triumvirate of Mac Allister, Gravenberch and Szoboszlai, at least until Wirtz can help them show more solidity. It will be intriguing how often his talent is accommodated on the left wing.
For now, though, Slot’s two £100m men provide selection dilemmas, in if he chooses Isak or Ekitike and whether he picks Wirtz, and when, and where.
