Arne Slot could have a severe choice dilemma on his fingers forward of Liverpool’s journey to Turf Moor on Sunday.
The Merseysiders will likely be because of tackle Scott Parker’s promoted Burnley facet, and Paul Merson believes the Dutch head coach may do with dropping Florian Wirtz from his midfield.
Liverpool have made an ideal begin to their Premier League title defence within the 2025/26 season, with three out of three wins secured.
Is it time to drop Florian Wirtz?
It appears a little bit of a nutty suggestion to bench our document midfield signing.
To be truthful, Wirtz hasn’t had an ideal begin to life at Anfield, however there was all the time going to be an acclimatisation interval of kinds, even coming from a stylistically related league just like the Bundesliga.
Nonetheless, Paul Merson seems to have u-turned on his personal suggestion and known as for Slot to play a midfield three of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai.
“He spent large on Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, so these two should positively begin?” the Sky Sports activities pundit wrote in his Sportskeeda column.
“However who do they take out of this group? The place do you play Dominik Szoboszlai? He’s been terrific however you absolutely can’t preserve enjoying him at right-back? The midfield trio of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Szoboszlai performed an enormous position in Liverpool’s success final season. So I feel Slot has a giant headache when it comes to group choice now.
“Wirtz is a high participant. However there isn’t any want to vary one thing which isn’t damaged! The Liverpool midfield appears a bit weak now and in the event that they get overrun in that a part of the pitch, it’s an enormous drawback.
“If I needed to choose Liverpool’s finest front-three proper now, I might go along with Mohamed Salah, Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo. If I needed to do the identical with their midfield, I might put Szoboszlai in there as an alternative of Wirtz.”
What group ought to Liverpool put out towards Burnley?
In our view, Florian Wirtz ought to nonetheless make the first-XI come Sunday’s Premier League away journey.
We’re nonetheless of the thoughts that it could be best to lengthen the Dominik Szoboszlai experiment at right-back, given Conor Bradley has solely not too long ago returned to the pitch.
Likewise, Jeremie Frimpong appears like he may be known as upon for some minutes this weekend. So, we’re completely satisfied not fixing one thing that isn’t damaged at this current stage!
Paul Merson is unsuitable: Liverpool shouldn’t drop Wirtz
The notion of forcing Wirtz out huge is, with the best of respect to Merson, laughable.
There’s not an opportunity in hell the German worldwide would have agreed to make the change to Liverpool had we supplied him Luis Diaz’s place within the facet.
The important thing providing that clinched the deal forward of Bayern Munich was the truth that the previous Bayer Leverkusen man could be the central cog within the Liverpool machine.
And why shouldn’t he be? In relation to inventive involvement, there are few in world soccer who exceed Florian Wirtz.
Shot-creating actions
Progressive passes
Profitable take-ons
5.24 per 90 (91st percentile)
6.46 per 90 (93rd percentile)
2.86 per 90 (96th percentile)
* Florian Wirtz stats over the past 12 months, courtesy of FBref
Put merely, the 22-year-old makes issues occur when he’s on the pitch. As soon as he begins actually hitting his stride in England, it’ll be tough to conceive of a time when he wasn’t one of many first names on the teamsheet.
We’ll discover a method to preserve the stability proper, and within the meantime, it’s completely wholesome to have some choice dilemmas going into every gameweek!
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