Nicky Butt believes Liverpool would already want to cash in on Florian Wirtz if they could recover most of their outlay on the under-performing playmaker, comparing the German to a Manchester United flop. The 23-year-old has made a slow start to the season under new head coach Andoni Iraola, with just one assist and no goals from seven appearances, and faced increased criticism after an anonymous display in the Reds' 3-0 loss to Manchester City on Sunday.
Wirtz's struggles at Liverpool
Wirtz also struggled during his first season in England following his £116m move from Bayer Leverkusen, recording seven goals and eight assists from 49 appearances as he failed to rediscover his form from his time in Germany, with Liverpool falling well short of defending the Premier League title. Butt believes Wirtz is not suited to the Premier League, comparing his struggles to those of his former Manchester United teammate Juan Sebastian Veron.
“I think Wirtz is a lovely, lovely footballer, but the club and even the league don't suit him,” Butt said on The Good, The Bad & The Football, sponsored by Midnite. “I think if they could get some money back for him anywhere near what they paid, they wouldn't stick with him. Why would you? It's not worth the lad, is it? And he's a good footballer. He could go back to Germany and be a superstar. He can go to another club in Italy or something. It's just not clicking for him at that point. It happened. One of the best players I trained with was Veron. Veron was phenomenal. And in Europe, it worked for him. The Premier League just didn't work for him. And he was a phenomenal footballer.”
Veron's Premier League struggles
Veron was one of the best midfielders in the world when he joined Manchester United in a £28.1m switch from Lazio in the summer of 2001, but the Argentina international was sold to Chelsea for just £15m two years later. He was then sent back on loan to Italy after just one season at Stamford Bridge, and would see out his contract with temporary stints at Internazionale and Estudiantes before signing permanently for the latter in 2007. In total, he made 58 appearances during three seasons in England, returning eight goals and four assists as he struggled with form and injuries and failed to adapt to the higher intensity of the Premier League.
Meanwhile, Paul Scholes has claimed Wirtz does not want it enough to succeed at Liverpool, and would be better off completing a move to La Liga. “You can be aggressive in different ways. You can be aggressive like Nick is aggressive,” Scholes said on The Good, The Bad & The Football, sponsored by Midnite. “Or you can be aggressive in the way you play football. Wirtz, we think he's a top-quality player, and they paid 100 million quid for him, but does he want it in his head enough to win games of football for Liverpool? Is he interested in goals, assists? He seems interested in all the little bits outside of it, which, to be fair, he isn't doing that well. He looks like a little kid playing men's football. You have to give Barcola a little bit of a pass. Has he only been there five games or something? And look, he's a talented kid. But Wirtz is the one who's been there for two years now. If you're brought in for that money, you have to be winning games for your team. When I think about people in that position, I always think of Frank Lampard; he won his team's games of football by being aggressive, scoring goals, and wanting to produce goals every week. It doesn't look like he's got that. If we compare, say, De Bruyne, if he didn't score a goal or make a goal in a game, I think he'd be devastated. Bruno's the same. Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, too. These players who constantly want to make goals, want to score goals for the team. And if they don't, they're devastated. I don't think he's got that in him. I think he's just still quite happy. Florian Wirtz is made for Spain. He's just small, and he is great technically. He's not showing it at the minute. The ball's bouncing off him. I don't know how many times (vs Man City). It's been that long now. How long do you give him for it to work?”
