I had no idea that muller himself actually coined the raumdeuter role, always thought he was just the perfect example of it.
I have watched a fair bit of Wirtz over the last couple weeks like we all have. He definitely has that knack of just making it easy for his teammates to pass to him. I do think him seeing the ball so much is partly due to him being by far Bayer’s best player. Maybe these numbers will drop a bit at Liverpool, unless Arne fully gives him the keys to the side, which he may well do.
It's fascinating to assess new signings this summer because we don't yet have a FULL understanding of how Arne wants to play. Each signing gives us additional clues to answer that question. Wirtz as the "advanced pivot" as Josh labels it is a pretty big piece of that puzzle. That piece can also be viewed as the foundation for the post-Mo era of our attack.
Great stuff Josh. Please keep writing about Wirtz. He's all I can think about now haha. I couldn't find any weakness in his game, for real, even defensively. He's second when it comes to duels won in the Bundesliga last season.
Alonso's football really transformed Wirtz. He was the reference for Leverkusen with the ball. I'm skeptical as to how Slot can extract the best out of Wirtz like Alonso did.
Let's see if we sign him first. It's not like we haven't seen big deals go down under FSG.
If it does go down, I'd like to see us push Macca into the '10', and then bring in another midfielder to backfill Macca. I'm still not sure about Ryan at 6, league title notwithstanding, and shifting him into more of an 8 role and bringing in more of a specialist DM would make a lot of sense. And the idea that Slot doesn't want a 'DM' and that DMs can barely kick a football in a straight line is nonsense. I'm not suggesting signing Tarkowski and playing him there, but a midfielder who can pass AND mind the shop if we're going to play two attacking fullbacks.
But okay, let's stick to the subject matter and assume Wirtz is coming.
If so, I agree, the number of touches suggests he is 'always involved' and that is important, regardless of position. If a player doesn't touch the ball much in a game, certainly a midfielder, it's because he's playing at a level that is beyond him, or it's because he's lazy, a Mesut Ozil type who thinks it's okay to have ten touches in a game, for three hundred grand.
But there should never be an assumption that data will map across from one league to another, or from one coach to another. The Bundesliga is a much weaker league than ours.
Macca's 'involvements' plummeted last season compared to his numbers under Klopp. I think it was about a third down on the preceding season, which is a gigantic drop-off. And the reason (suggested by Mo Stewart, I think) was that Slot seems to prefer to hold the ball at the back, rather than in midfield. It means you are less likely to give up the ball on the counter, but it can make for more of a dull watch (my opinion, not Mo's). Who really wants to see Virg and Ibou pass it back and forth between them?
So I'd expect to see Wirtz's numbers suffer a similar fate, but even if it dropped from say 80 to 50, that's still a huge number of instances of an outstandingly creative player getting on the ball. That can only be a very exciting prospect. If our advanced creator is seeing 50 touches of the ball, and the opposition's equivalent is only seeing 10 touches, good things are gonna happen.
It should be a transformative signing, all being well, with the potential to change our game from a sort of plodding along in second gear for large parts, to more like the pass and move Liverpool groove of Kenny's late 80s side (and best of Klopp era), but ONLY if Arne takes the brakes off. We were magnificent against Spurs. Why can't we play like that more often?
Arne seems to like to sit on a lead, a trait I associate with Italy, and it's paid huge dividends, but with a title under his belt it'd be nice to think he's going to take a more assertive approach in the second season, and signing Wirtz instantly allows us to go from second gear straight to fourth, and I mean the old 70s fourth gear, which was as good as we got. None of this tenth gear stuff.
Just a tactical question. Does the number of times Wirtz got on the ball suggest he is looked for early in moves, potentially skipping a lot of the pissing about? Or were the rest of Leverkusen's players registering similarly high numbers, which would be down to Alonso's coaching/tactics?
If he can be found early in moves, we're almost playing on the counter without playing on the counter, if you understand what I mean. Hugely unsettling for the opposition. One or two passes and we're in chance creation territory.
There are very few players at the top end of the game who combine creativity with being extraordinarily involved in the game. Modric springs to mind. And we've just seen Vitinha, who was magnificent, star for PSG. Joao Neves, though a different type of player, is also astonishingly busy. You cannot really go wrong with that combination of industry and creativity.
Hence the massive fee.
Having written all that and got more excited than when I logged in, let's hope FSG sanction it...
So your first and last paras reference FSG as if somehow they alone are responsible for our signings. Not how it works.
They appoint professionals to do the research and they approve the funds based on what those professionals deem to be value. Those professionals then try to do the deal within the envelope provided which takes into account what the club can reasonably afford. It’s a model that looks eminently sensible compared to just about every one of our rivals.
Josh's piece had nothing to do with FSG and then the first casual mention of FSG, in the context of let's hope they sanction the deal, and the FSG bots come out.
If Hughes went mad and decided he was going to bankrupt the club to sign Wirtz, you do realise that Billy Hogan would just pull the plug on it? No? Chain of command.
He went from 68 passes per 90 under klopp to 52 under slot…
And the most obvious reason why would be Macca spent a large chunk of last season playing as a single pivot 6.
This season Macca made less progressive passes per 90; but received more, had more touches in the attacking penalty area and had more shot creating actions.
Obviously, different roles and positions will change involvements as much as reduce them.
However… Liverpool have lost our main playmaker, and progressive player, and replaced him with a flying WB… nearly another flying LB too.
It’s a fair guess to suggest that, with having nearly signed an elite playmaking 10, slot is planning to build more through central areas and such Wirtz is likely to see substantial involvement
68 down to 52 is a full third down. That's a plummet in anyone's book. Want to do a 'third' next? I've left the door ajar...
"And the most obvious reason why would be Macca spent a large chunk of last season playing as a single pivot 6."
That could be a partial explanation, although Mo Stewart's theory, that Slot preferred to keep the ball at the back more than in midfield, is probably more of a factor.
I don't see our biggest midfield thinker being a third less involved in build-up than he used to be (or at least was the season before) as a good thing. I'd like to see him more involved. Yeah he's a little half-Argentine half-Irish half-Scots half-Manx half-Cornish bulldog, and that's great, but Macca's a brain player and I would have liked to have seen him deployed further forward where he can damage teams more with his quick thinking, see Spurs etc. He comes alive around the box, times his runs.
I think Macca could have been "an elite playmaking 10" if we'd given him the chance but now we don't have to, although hopefully Slot will still find a way to boost Macca's involvements again, he's too classy to be Alexis A Third Down Mac Allister.
Linking back to Josh's main point – that Wirtz allies energy to creativity – energy creates space; Wirtz getting on the ball a lot is going to attract opposition players like flies to shite, and that will open up space for the likes of Macca and anyone else.
Likewise Bradley or Frimpong will provide a lot more energy and movement than Trent did. Not seen EF in action yet but those driving off-the-ball gallops of Bradley start a sort of chain reaction. It's like watching molecules heat up and come to life and start moving around. Potentially we get to watch a repeat of the King Kenny era of the late 80s with Beardsley and McMahon et al zipping about all over the place.
I don't really care how many people get annoyed at me 'digging out' Trent. I'll do it for as long as it's relevant to making a point about the team. Those last few years it was less pass-and-move, more like pass-and-admire. Yeah, he could thread some good balls into midfield, but as much as one player's movement induces movement among his teammates, the opposite is equally true and Trent's lack of energy seemed to have a knock-on effect, causing a sort of stasis, a slowing of circulation.
I think PSG are the best side we've played in the last decade, and a lot of that was the sheer running power of Neves and Vitinha, who ran us into the ground. Will the injection of 'Flo' (can we call him that yet?) at let's say Dom's expense increase our power of circulation? Arguably not as they're both high energy players. But Flo's decision making is surely going to be levels above and that should make a difference.
We won the league this year. We didn’t last. I don’t think there’s a person alive who can argue swapping Grav for Macca positionally, with the system change, hasn’t benefitted the team… even if Macca gets on the ball less.
I agree Macca was our best creative 10… but he doesn’t have the pace or legs to press as part of the front 2 in the 424 shape… likewise Elliot.
Hence Dom and Jones taking that role… and now Wirtz.
Pace and energy are great, but Liverpool were never remotely a better team with Bradley than Trent.
As exciting as frimpong is.. and as much as we may have looked to upgrade at 10.. we did need to sign a RB and a playmaker to replace what Trent gave the team..
.. we needed someone who could feed Salah in the same way, free him to attack in behind.
Eitherway.. we may well end up a better team, certainly a quicker one.. and we will certainly play less.
It seems wild to me that people (even some LFC fans) are criticising the wisdom of this transfer and the money involved. Wirtz seems to me to be such a generational talent that if you can get him, you just get him. Short of bankrupting the club, any money spent is smart money.
I'm interested in the point Josh makes here about his touches and how he is like a deep-lying playmaker but in the final third. It seems like Wirtz is also a means to replace TAA's (deep-lying) playmaking 'in the aggregate'. From a recent Opta article:
"He may play in a very different position, but Wirtz and Alexander-Arnold closely mirrored each other this season in league football for touches (86.9 and to 87.9) and passes per 90 (60.8 to 61.2). However, Wirtz outdid the now Real Madrid full-back in terms of chances created from open play per 90 (2.1 to 1.6) and expected assists per 90 (0.36 to 0.28)."
>I don't even see the point in comparing Trent to Flo. One is not replacing the other.
>Sometimes 'data' is just a load of numbers and that's all it is.
Agree. Nevertheless, these numbers tell us that Trent and Wirtz had a similar number of touches and passes per 90, but Wirtz created more open play chances. Trent was an important playmaker for LFC in 2024-25, who needs to be replicated via other means. Wirtz is a step-up from Trent in that sense, and in a better area of the pitch. It is not a direct comparison, just data that suggests we are not losing (and are upgrading on) the good things Trent did.
Hence:
>It makes far more sense to have your playmaker in the 10 area of the pitch than at RB.
>Take the creative RB and energetic 10 and flip them into creative 10 and energetic RB.
Hard agree. This is why I'm thrilled with the Frimpong and Wirtz deals.
Love you writing style. And an insightful post 🔥
I had no idea that muller himself actually coined the raumdeuter role, always thought he was just the perfect example of it.
I have watched a fair bit of Wirtz over the last couple weeks like we all have. He definitely has that knack of just making it easy for his teammates to pass to him. I do think him seeing the ball so much is partly due to him being by far Bayer’s best player. Maybe these numbers will drop a bit at Liverpool, unless Arne fully gives him the keys to the side, which he may well do.
It's fascinating to assess new signings this summer because we don't yet have a FULL understanding of how Arne wants to play. Each signing gives us additional clues to answer that question. Wirtz as the "advanced pivot" as Josh labels it is a pretty big piece of that puzzle. That piece can also be viewed as the foundation for the post-Mo era of our attack.
Great stuff Josh. Please keep writing about Wirtz. He's all I can think about now haha. I couldn't find any weakness in his game, for real, even defensively. He's second when it comes to duels won in the Bundesliga last season.
That touches per 90 stat is mind blowing, being an Arsenal fan I was thinking, What about Odegaard!?
Alonso's football really transformed Wirtz. He was the reference for Leverkusen with the ball. I'm skeptical as to how Slot can extract the best out of Wirtz like Alonso did.
Let's see if we sign him first. It's not like we haven't seen big deals go down under FSG.
If it does go down, I'd like to see us push Macca into the '10', and then bring in another midfielder to backfill Macca. I'm still not sure about Ryan at 6, league title notwithstanding, and shifting him into more of an 8 role and bringing in more of a specialist DM would make a lot of sense. And the idea that Slot doesn't want a 'DM' and that DMs can barely kick a football in a straight line is nonsense. I'm not suggesting signing Tarkowski and playing him there, but a midfielder who can pass AND mind the shop if we're going to play two attacking fullbacks.
But okay, let's stick to the subject matter and assume Wirtz is coming.
If so, I agree, the number of touches suggests he is 'always involved' and that is important, regardless of position. If a player doesn't touch the ball much in a game, certainly a midfielder, it's because he's playing at a level that is beyond him, or it's because he's lazy, a Mesut Ozil type who thinks it's okay to have ten touches in a game, for three hundred grand.
But there should never be an assumption that data will map across from one league to another, or from one coach to another. The Bundesliga is a much weaker league than ours.
Macca's 'involvements' plummeted last season compared to his numbers under Klopp. I think it was about a third down on the preceding season, which is a gigantic drop-off. And the reason (suggested by Mo Stewart, I think) was that Slot seems to prefer to hold the ball at the back, rather than in midfield. It means you are less likely to give up the ball on the counter, but it can make for more of a dull watch (my opinion, not Mo's). Who really wants to see Virg and Ibou pass it back and forth between them?
So I'd expect to see Wirtz's numbers suffer a similar fate, but even if it dropped from say 80 to 50, that's still a huge number of instances of an outstandingly creative player getting on the ball. That can only be a very exciting prospect. If our advanced creator is seeing 50 touches of the ball, and the opposition's equivalent is only seeing 10 touches, good things are gonna happen.
It should be a transformative signing, all being well, with the potential to change our game from a sort of plodding along in second gear for large parts, to more like the pass and move Liverpool groove of Kenny's late 80s side (and best of Klopp era), but ONLY if Arne takes the brakes off. We were magnificent against Spurs. Why can't we play like that more often?
Arne seems to like to sit on a lead, a trait I associate with Italy, and it's paid huge dividends, but with a title under his belt it'd be nice to think he's going to take a more assertive approach in the second season, and signing Wirtz instantly allows us to go from second gear straight to fourth, and I mean the old 70s fourth gear, which was as good as we got. None of this tenth gear stuff.
Just a tactical question. Does the number of times Wirtz got on the ball suggest he is looked for early in moves, potentially skipping a lot of the pissing about? Or were the rest of Leverkusen's players registering similarly high numbers, which would be down to Alonso's coaching/tactics?
If he can be found early in moves, we're almost playing on the counter without playing on the counter, if you understand what I mean. Hugely unsettling for the opposition. One or two passes and we're in chance creation territory.
There are very few players at the top end of the game who combine creativity with being extraordinarily involved in the game. Modric springs to mind. And we've just seen Vitinha, who was magnificent, star for PSG. Joao Neves, though a different type of player, is also astonishingly busy. You cannot really go wrong with that combination of industry and creativity.
Hence the massive fee.
Having written all that and got more excited than when I logged in, let's hope FSG sanction it...
So your first and last paras reference FSG as if somehow they alone are responsible for our signings. Not how it works.
They appoint professionals to do the research and they approve the funds based on what those professionals deem to be value. Those professionals then try to do the deal within the envelope provided which takes into account what the club can reasonably afford. It’s a model that looks eminently sensible compared to just about every one of our rivals.
Yawn.
Josh's piece had nothing to do with FSG and then the first casual mention of FSG, in the context of let's hope they sanction the deal, and the FSG bots come out.
If Hughes went mad and decided he was going to bankrupt the club to sign Wirtz, you do realise that Billy Hogan would just pull the plug on it? No? Chain of command.
Can we get back to the footie now?
Ta
I’d reply to the points you made if you hadn’t adopted a Manc trope by opening with “yawn”. Next thing you’ll be calling Liverpool fans victims.
Ta
Mac alisters involvements didn’t “plummet”
He went from 68 passes per 90 under klopp to 52 under slot…
And the most obvious reason why would be Macca spent a large chunk of last season playing as a single pivot 6.
This season Macca made less progressive passes per 90; but received more, had more touches in the attacking penalty area and had more shot creating actions.
Obviously, different roles and positions will change involvements as much as reduce them.
However… Liverpool have lost our main playmaker, and progressive player, and replaced him with a flying WB… nearly another flying LB too.
It’s a fair guess to suggest that, with having nearly signed an elite playmaking 10, slot is planning to build more through central areas and such Wirtz is likely to see substantial involvement
68 down to 52 is a full third down. That's a plummet in anyone's book. Want to do a 'third' next? I've left the door ajar...
"And the most obvious reason why would be Macca spent a large chunk of last season playing as a single pivot 6."
That could be a partial explanation, although Mo Stewart's theory, that Slot preferred to keep the ball at the back more than in midfield, is probably more of a factor.
I don't see our biggest midfield thinker being a third less involved in build-up than he used to be (or at least was the season before) as a good thing. I'd like to see him more involved. Yeah he's a little half-Argentine half-Irish half-Scots half-Manx half-Cornish bulldog, and that's great, but Macca's a brain player and I would have liked to have seen him deployed further forward where he can damage teams more with his quick thinking, see Spurs etc. He comes alive around the box, times his runs.
I think Macca could have been "an elite playmaking 10" if we'd given him the chance but now we don't have to, although hopefully Slot will still find a way to boost Macca's involvements again, he's too classy to be Alexis A Third Down Mac Allister.
Linking back to Josh's main point – that Wirtz allies energy to creativity – energy creates space; Wirtz getting on the ball a lot is going to attract opposition players like flies to shite, and that will open up space for the likes of Macca and anyone else.
Likewise Bradley or Frimpong will provide a lot more energy and movement than Trent did. Not seen EF in action yet but those driving off-the-ball gallops of Bradley start a sort of chain reaction. It's like watching molecules heat up and come to life and start moving around. Potentially we get to watch a repeat of the King Kenny era of the late 80s with Beardsley and McMahon et al zipping about all over the place.
I don't really care how many people get annoyed at me 'digging out' Trent. I'll do it for as long as it's relevant to making a point about the team. Those last few years it was less pass-and-move, more like pass-and-admire. Yeah, he could thread some good balls into midfield, but as much as one player's movement induces movement among his teammates, the opposite is equally true and Trent's lack of energy seemed to have a knock-on effect, causing a sort of stasis, a slowing of circulation.
I think PSG are the best side we've played in the last decade, and a lot of that was the sheer running power of Neves and Vitinha, who ran us into the ground. Will the injection of 'Flo' (can we call him that yet?) at let's say Dom's expense increase our power of circulation? Arguably not as they're both high energy players. But Flo's decision making is surely going to be levels above and that should make a difference.
It’s not a third - it’s 24%
Macca moved from 6=>8 and decreased 24%
And Gravenberch who has moved from 8 => 6 has seen his per 90 passing stats increase from 40 to 58 (33%)
It’s almost like they swapped positions 🤷♂️
We won the league this year. We didn’t last. I don’t think there’s a person alive who can argue swapping Grav for Macca positionally, with the system change, hasn’t benefitted the team… even if Macca gets on the ball less.
I agree Macca was our best creative 10… but he doesn’t have the pace or legs to press as part of the front 2 in the 424 shape… likewise Elliot.
Hence Dom and Jones taking that role… and now Wirtz.
Pace and energy are great, but Liverpool were never remotely a better team with Bradley than Trent.
As exciting as frimpong is.. and as much as we may have looked to upgrade at 10.. we did need to sign a RB and a playmaker to replace what Trent gave the team..
.. we needed someone who could feed Salah in the same way, free him to attack in behind.
Eitherway.. we may well end up a better team, certainly a quicker one.. and we will certainly play less.
It seems wild to me that people (even some LFC fans) are criticising the wisdom of this transfer and the money involved. Wirtz seems to me to be such a generational talent that if you can get him, you just get him. Short of bankrupting the club, any money spent is smart money.
I'm interested in the point Josh makes here about his touches and how he is like a deep-lying playmaker but in the final third. It seems like Wirtz is also a means to replace TAA's (deep-lying) playmaking 'in the aggregate'. From a recent Opta article:
"He may play in a very different position, but Wirtz and Alexander-Arnold closely mirrored each other this season in league football for touches (86.9 and to 87.9) and passes per 90 (60.8 to 61.2). However, Wirtz outdid the now Real Madrid full-back in terms of chances created from open play per 90 (2.1 to 1.6) and expected assists per 90 (0.36 to 0.28)."
Source: https://theanalyst.com/articles/florian-wirtz-liverpool-stats-record-fee
I don't even see the point in comparing Trent to Flo. One is not replacing the other.
Sometimes 'data' is just a load of numbers and that's all it is.
It makes far more sense to have your playmaker in the 10 area of the pitch than at RB.
It makes far more sense to have a right back who has some vague interest in defending.
Take the creative RB and energetic 10 and flip them into creative 10 and energetic RB.
Unless the thing that won us the league was our unorthodox set-up but I don't buy that.
>I don't even see the point in comparing Trent to Flo. One is not replacing the other.
>Sometimes 'data' is just a load of numbers and that's all it is.
Agree. Nevertheless, these numbers tell us that Trent and Wirtz had a similar number of touches and passes per 90, but Wirtz created more open play chances. Trent was an important playmaker for LFC in 2024-25, who needs to be replicated via other means. Wirtz is a step-up from Trent in that sense, and in a better area of the pitch. It is not a direct comparison, just data that suggests we are not losing (and are upgrading on) the good things Trent did.
Hence:
>It makes far more sense to have your playmaker in the 10 area of the pitch than at RB.
>Take the creative RB and energetic 10 and flip them into creative 10 and energetic RB.
Hard agree. This is why I'm thrilled with the Frimpong and Wirtz deals.
Again? Really?