{"id":348742,"date":"2025-08-16T08:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T08:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/348742\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T08:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T08:56:11","slug":"florian-wirtz-told-he-was-average-on-liverpool-premier-league-debut-as-steve-nicol-lets-him-have-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/348742\/","title":{"rendered":"Florian Wirtz told he was ‘average’ on Liverpool Premier League debut as Steve Nicol lets him have it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Liverpool are off and running in the 2025\/26 Premier League season after an entertaining win over Bournemouth on Friday night.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Reds did not make life easy for themselves on an emotional night which saw Anfield pay its respects to Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva.<\/p>\n

Despite this being the first game of what will be a long campaign, Liverpool<\/a> looked tired and lethargic as they surrendered a two goal lead to the Cherries.<\/p>\n

They deserve credit for coming back and scoring two late goals, but there were some concerning signs for Arne Slot throughout the 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

One of those perhaps came from a quiet Premier League<\/a> debut for new record signing Florian Wirtz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wirtz has lit up pre-season for Liverpool<\/a>, bringing his special brand of awareness, vision and creativity to the Reds. But according to former Liverpool full-back Steve Nicol<\/a>, this was nowhere to be seen against Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

\"FlorianPhoto by Liverpool FC\/Liverpool FC via Getty ImagesFlorian Wirtz still finding his position at Liverpool<\/p>\n

Nicol is well-known to be an often harsh critic during his role as a pundit for ESPN.<\/p>\n

And the Liverpool legend<\/a> did not hold back when delivering his assessment on Wirtz\u2019s first ever performance in the English top division.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0thought he was pretty average, to be honest,\u201d Nicol insisted. \u201cI think he probably passed the ball to a blue jersey more than he did a red jersey. I think most things he did he was not convincing in what he was trying to do. There was no real pace about him and he was kind of floating around as if he wasn\u2019t sure where he should be to get the ball. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, that takes time. You can\u2019t just throw three or four or five players together and think they\u2019re going to understand what everybody is looking for. But I think he\u2019s the obvious one who is looking and searching to figure out what he should be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Federico Chiesa hints at whether he\u2019s leaving Liverpool after scoring dramatic Bournemouth winner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cReally what he should be doing is getting the ball in the final third,\u201d Nicol added. \u201cThat\u2019s where he should be on the ball. But he doesn\u2019t seem to be getting it in the final third and when he\u2019s coming short he\u2019s not doing enough with it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got to figure out how to use this guy\u2019s ability because there\u2019s no question he can play. He\u2019s just got to get in the right position, with the right balls and he then has to play the right passes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Gravenberch would help Wirtz settle<\/p>\n

Although Nicol is not necessarily wrong in his assessment of Wirtz, he does also offer some explanation for why things may have been tricky.<\/p>\n\n\nChances Created<\/td>\nAccurate Passes<\/td>\nTouches<\/td>\nPasses into final third<\/td>\nTackles Won<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nFlorian Wirtz vs Bournemouth<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n38\/51 (75%)<\/td>\n73<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n2\/2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

According to the pundit, the absence of Ryan Gravenberch from the Liverpool midfield meant the Reds \u2013 and Wirtz \u2013 looked less solid in the middle of the pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWirtz being one of the three in the middle with no Gravenberch, that\u2019s a clear problem,\u201d said Nicol. \u201cMac Allister can probably do a better job than he did, he\u2019s not 100 per cent fit. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut without Gravenberch and then Wirtz being one of those three, he gives you nothing defensively. That\u2019s not why he\u2019s there, but if you\u2019re going to play him in that three you\u2019re going to have to have somebody who\u2019s really solid, who\u2019s going to be in front of that back line and who\u2019s going to stop the second goal from Semenyo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having signed for a British record transfer fee, it perhaps was an underwhelming entrance for Wirtz. But there are enough signs that when it does click for him, he is going to be impossible to stop. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool are off and running in the 2025\/26 Premier League season after an entertaining win over Bournemouth on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,2912,4884,179,123461,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-348742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-florian-wirtz","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-steve-nicol","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115037613765484572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}