Wirtz has a dark side to him, says Slot ahead of Everton clash as new signing adapts to the league’s intensity.
‘An artist who can be mean’: Liverpool’s Florian Wirtz has a dark side, insists Arne Slot.
Arne Slot believes Florian Wirtz can succeed in the Premier League because of his darker side on the pitch. The German playmaker recently stated that one of the main reasons he left Bayer Leverkusen was the difficulty of adjusting to the intensity of English football.
When Everton visits Anfield on Saturday, the 22-year-old will experience his first Merseyside derby, which will be a crucial test of Wirtz’s skills. Although he has helped Liverpool get off to a great start this season, he has not yet contributed a goal or an assist. His strongest performance to far came in midweek’s 3-2 Champions League victory over Atletico Madrid, indicating that he is starting to settle there.
Slot on Wirtz’s quality
“To say that he’s an artist doesn’t do him justice,” Slot, the head coach, said. “He is an artist, but he can be mean as well. Otherwise, you can’t reach the levels he’s reaching. He works incredibly hard here in this building to get better and better and better. So that mentality he has inside of him and you also see that mentality when he loses the ball once or twice. He’s not going to hide, he wants the third one, he wants the fourth one.”
Wirtz is still finding his feet in the league, while also learning the nuances and the idiosyncrasies of his fellow attacking quartet of Hugo Ekitike, Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, and Alexander Isak.
“He’s adjusting, in my opinion, very well,” Slot said. “It gets better and better every single game. He always wants to have the ball, even if he has a few moments where we feel like he could do better. He just always wants to keep the ball, always keeps on trying. And he gets better and better, and fitter and fitter.
“That’s maybe the thing that matters most, because we don’t have to teach him how to play football. He just has to adapt to the intensity levels of the Premier League.”