Florian Wirtz's Struggles at Liverpool: A Record Signing Under Pressure
Florian Wirtz walked into Anfield as the man meant to bend games to his will. A British record fee at the time, a highlight reel from Bayer Leverkusen that looked like a career cheat code, and numbers that backed up the hype: 57 goals and 65 assists in 197 games. Liverpool thought they were buying a finished article who could still get better.
A year on, the conversation sounds very different.
A Record Signing Under the Microscope
Wirtz cost Liverpool around £116m and arrived as the centrepiece of their next era. Alexander Isak’s move would soon eclipse his fee, but the German was supposed to be the one who stitched everything together between midfield and attack.
Instead, he has become a lightning rod.
Seven goals and 11 assists in 55 appearances is not a disaster. It works out at a direct goal contribution a little over every three games. Respectable, but not what Liverpool expected from a player who terrorised the Bundesliga and looked ready-made for elite-level dominance.
The contrast with his Leverkusen output is stark. There, he was a force of nature. At Anfield, he has been more of a flicker: flashes of vision, the odd disguised pass, a moment of control in tight spaces that reminds everyone why Liverpool paid so much. Then long spells where the game seems to move around him, not through him.
Jamie Carragher has not been shy about saying so. The former Liverpool defender has questioned whether this is simply Wirtz’s ceiling in England, arguing that what the fans are seeing now might be as good as it gets. In his eyes, that level does not justify a guaranteed place in the side.
Gary Neville has gone even harder, saying Wirtz “needs a rocket up him” after an anonymous display on the opening weekend of the season. The tone around the 23-year-old has shifted from excitement to exasperation.
Bayern Lurking, Player Open
All of that has fuelled a familiar storyline: Bayern Munich circling a top German talent who looks uncomfortable abroad.
Bayern pushed Liverpool hard for Wirtz last summer and never really took their eyes off him. According to a source speaking to Football Insider, the player would be keen to leave Anfield for Munich if a concrete offer lands on the table.
The reasoning is brutally simple. The source claims Wirtz has struggled with the Premier League’s physicality and tempo, and that his best Liverpool performances have come in European competition, where the rhythm suits him more. The view from the player’s camp, it is suggested, is that a return to Germany – and specifically to Bayern – would fit his game far better.
Back in the Bundesliga, he knows the league, the style, the opponents. They know him. The argument goes that he could instantly operate at the level he showed at Leverkusen, rather than trying to force his way into the chaos of English football.
From Wirtz’s side, a move like that “makes a lot of sense”, even if prising him out of Liverpool would be complicated given the fee involved and the club’s long-term planning.
Liverpool Hold Their Ground
Inside Anfield, the mood is very different.
Liverpool sources insist there is no appetite to sell Wirtz, no active effort to move him on, and no willingness to entertain an exit in 2027 being brought forward. The club still believes the player they thought they were signing is in there, waiting for the right conditions and confidence to bring him out.
There is an acceptance that doubts exist in some quarters of the club about whether he can hit the “extraordinary” heights that were forecast. That is natural after a first season that never quite caught fire. But those doubts have not hardened into a decision.
Instead, the plan is to give Andoni Iraola the season to work with Wirtz and turn him into a cornerstone of the new project. The coaching staff have pushed back at some of the harsher external criticism, pointing to tactical adaptation, the changing structure around him, and even the mentality of those alongside him.
In his defence, some within the camp argue that three “scared” teammates have contributed to his struggles, with Wirtz guilty of trying too hard to impress in a side still finding its own identity. When the collective is tense, the playmaker often looks like the problem. The numbers, though modest by his standards, still compare favourably with others in his role.
Martin Odegaard is a good example. The Arsenal captain, now regarded as one of the Premier League’s most influential midfielders, produced fewer goal contributions in his first 55 games for the Gunners than Wirtz has managed in his first 55 for Liverpool. Development is rarely linear, even at the top level.
Bayern Wait for a Crack in the Door
Bayern, for their part, are in no rush. Their admiration has not dimmed despite Wirtz’s uneven start in England. If anything, his difficulties only make the prospect more intriguing for them.
They are monitoring the situation closely. They know Liverpool’s stance. They also know how quickly that stance can soften if a second season follows the pattern of the first and if the club begin to question whether the return on their investment will ever match the outlay.
For now, Wirtz sits in a strange place: too talented to discard, too expensive to rotate without scrutiny, too important to the long-term vision to be treated as a short-term experiment. Every touch gets analysed, every quiet game magnified.
He remains a divisive figure. To some, he is a misunderstood technician trapped in a league that doesn’t suit him. To others, he is a luxury player yet to prove he can carry the weight of a club like Liverpool in the most unforgiving competition in the world.
One thing is clear: if this season does not ignite for Florian Wirtz, Bayern Munich will not be the only ones asking whether his future brilliance is destined to shine somewhere else.
