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liverpool guard andy robertson Pushes for £100 million signing florian wertz Decisions should not be taken based on numbers alone.
Germany International has come under investigation for not submitting the form from which it was created Bundesliga The 21-year-old is the reigning Player of the Year and one of Europe’s hottest prospects heading into Bayer Leverkusen’s title-winning 2023-24 season.
He struggled to embed himself in Arne Slot’s team, but remained the Premier League leader in terms of chances created (29), open-play chances (26) and expected assists (3.0).
Returning to Germany for the first time since leaving Germany in the summer, Wirtz began to show glimpses of his best return to form with two assists in a 5–1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League.
Robertson said, “I thought he was excellent, excellent. I thought he stepped up and moved the game, especially in the second half.”
“The players around him helped him a lot – Curtis Jones was excellent – and I thought the three midfielders helped us gain momentum and keep the ball.
“Flo has done really well since he came here. People focus on the number of goals and assists but sometimes that’s unfair because he has created a lot of chances.
“Some of the chances he created (against Frankfurt) ended in an assist. Hopefully he can learn a lot from this performance.”
The win in Germany ended a run of four consecutive defeats and marked a significant departure for Slott, who opted to play two strikers in Alexander Isak and Hugo Akitike, who scored the opening goal.
British-record signing £125million Isak will be ruled out of that option at Brentford on Saturday due to a groin problem.
“It changed it, obviously. We had more players centrally and I thought it worked really well, Alex and Hugo played really well in the first half and then Fede (Federico Chiesa) and Hugo did well in the second half,” Robertson said.
“It’s a different option for us and you always need different options, different formations, different people to be able to play and we did that.
“They both feed each other really well and then it’s about the lads working around them and I thought we did that really well.”
One thing he improved on was the set-piece, which had been a constant source of irritation in the slots at both ends of the pitch this season.
Centre-backs Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate both scored from corners shortly before half-time to take a two-goal lead, while defensively they faced no trouble from their hosts.
“We’ve conceded a few set-pieces and it’s been extremely disappointing and we’ve got to be better at that and with the number of deliveries we’ve made, we probably haven’t scored as much as we should have,” Robertson said.
“Thankfully it paid off: the deliveries were right, the blocks were right and the runners were right and when you get three things right you give yourself a big chance to score and the two big boys put us 3-1 up at key times and after that we went into cruise control and controlled the game.”