By and large, Liverpool players have been delivering nicely during the World Cup group stages, with all eight Reds making it through to the knockout rounds.
It has been nice to see after the woes of the 2025/26 season, and the Liverpool squad have made it clear with their performances on the pitch that they are better than what they showed last term.
Nevertheless, even having registered two well-taken assists for Germany, Florian Wirtz is still yet to really step up and show that the last 12 months have been an anomaly.
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Despite winning two of their three games and topping the group, Germany have been unconvincing, with Wirtz failing to show that he is a game-changing talent who can win matches on his own.
Instead, as World Cup-winning captain Philipp Lahm has pointed out this week, the Liverpool star’s failings are more because of how the team itself is playing, rather than anything to do with him individually.
Lahm says the system is to blame for underwhelming Wirtz
Right from when he arrived at Liverpool, it has looked as though Arne Slot had no real idea how to get the best out of Wirtz.
That continued throughout the former Bayer Leverkusen man’s debut season at Anfield, with the frustrating notion continuously being put forward that Wirtz will shine in the right system once Liverpool find it.
The same is seemingly now being supposed in Germany, with Lahm claiming that Julian Nagelsmann’s tactics are not getting the most out of the 23-year-old, along with Jamal Musiala.
“The fact that Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala still haven’t really found their rhythm in the tournament is largely down to the way we’re playing,” he said.
“There’s no doubt they have immense talent, but we need to put them in positions where they can shine more often. Against physically strong, hard-tackling opponents, we’ve struggled to find them in the right areas of the pitch.
“Perhaps they’re not moving well enough themselves, or sometimes not everyone sticks to their position and they end up getting in each other’s way,” Lahm added. “It’s not always clear who should drift inside and who should stay wide. We need much more from our front four – Wirtz, Musiala, Kai Havertz, and Leroy Sane. But if we continue to show faith in them, I’m confident they’ll eventually demonstrate their true quality.”
Wirtz must step up and take control
Though there may be some truth in Lahm’s comments, as there were all season with similar notions at Liverpool, it is frustrating that Wirtz simply cannot rise to the top in different systems.
It seems as though the Reds’ No. 7 needs very specific conditions for him to thrive during matches, and that is not good enough for a £116m player.
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For Liverpool, he was playing in a struggling team who could not continuously get their best players on the pitch together. It was hard to build the connections he clearly relies upon.
But for Germany, he has been playing with these same players for years. There should not be any excuses.
That there continue to be anyway will annoy Liverpool supporters, and will only add to the concerns that Wirtz will simply never quite gel with the Reds.
There is still time to come good for him at this World Cup, but he needs to put in a performance against Paraguay in the last-32, because there is a likely date with France beyond that. If Wirtz is still not on form by then, worries over exactly where he fits in at Liverpool will get worse.
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