- 3 hours ago
Liverpool are on the verge of breaking their transfer record to bring Florian Wirtz to the club from Bayer Leverkusen. But can a transfer in excess of £100m ever be worth the risk? Adam Clery examines the German international to show why he's as close to a sure thing as it's possible to get.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, just zero foreplay in this video, okay, number of assists across Europe in the last two seasons.
00:08Number one, you've got Mohamed Salah with 37, number two, you've got Florian Wurtz with 33,
00:15and because Wurtz has actually played less games across that time than Salah, his assists per game ratio is actually
00:24better.
00:25And as of right now, both of them play for Liverpool, oh dear.
00:36Yeah, so just to set my stall out very early here, hello Adam Cleary, the Adam Cleary Football Channel, welcome.
00:41This is a simply monumental transfer, it is the best club in the country going out and getting the best
00:48young player in Europe who is realistically available this summer.
00:53It is basically Wayne Rooney going to Manchester United, or for the hipsters amongst you, Mario Goetze going to Bayern
01:00Munich.
01:01The kid is only 22 years old, but has already demonstrated an ability to run entire games of football from
01:08back to front.
01:09He makes things happen in every single area of the pitch, and he is already undeniably elite in terms of
01:17both chance creation and finishing.
01:19Like, I'm going to try and not get too carried away in this video, but also, I will be getting
01:26carried away.
01:26He's a phenomenal player.
01:28But what makes him so good? That's probably why you're here.
01:31Well, let's have a look at Bayer Leverkusen from last season.
01:34You will see he is featured as the left-sided number 10 in Alonso's extremely fun 3-4-2-1
01:41thingy.
01:41You look at his total combined heat map from last season, you'll see that, yep, that's where he lives in
01:46this left-hand channel.
01:47It's where he does his work, but he also roams across the entire width of the pitch, looking to get
01:53involved.
01:53And he's not shy about dropping a lot deeper to help with the build-up and do things in the
01:59midfield as well.
02:01And on top of all of that, he also gets himself into the box.
02:06But it is this starting position of, like, left, inside, number 10, really the name for these things now.
02:13But anyway, this starting position is what allows him personally to thrive in this system.
02:18He can hug the touchline, he can take players on in wide areas, or he can attack from there directly
02:24into the box.
02:25He links up really nicely with Alex Grimaldo, who plays the left wing-back role for Leverkusen,
02:30and will quite often play him into the space that he's vacated after tying up his mark.
02:35It's just absolute classic, sort of wide playmaker stuff.
02:40But the thing, and in this video there will be many of these things, that makes Virts such a special
02:45player,
02:45is that his footwork, his ability technically, with his feet is so good,
02:50that he can do that exact same stuff that players look for space for in wide areas, right in the
02:57congested middle.
02:58He will take it with his back to goal, he will turn, he will beat players, he will find a
03:03through ball.
03:03He's so nice to watch, and just a throwback to classic number 10s that you so rarely see these days.
03:11Rui Costa, Pablo Aymar, Rick Helme, dare I say it, and yes I do, but there is more than a
03:18bit of the Beardsleys about him.
03:21Now just watch him in this bit here.
03:22The balance, the time he seems to create, the space he generates, is one of the most consistently watchable players
03:30around at the minute.
03:31And he's already got the sort of statistical numbers that when you see players doing this stuff,
03:37you just sort of hope they're going to add later on.
03:39He's already got it.
03:40It's worth pointing out, actually, even at this early juncture, the thing that enables him to do most of the
03:46stuff he does
03:46is this natural two-footedness he's got.
03:50He's probably the most naturally gifted two-footed player I think I can ever remember seeing,
03:54and it makes him a nightmare to mark as a result, because you simply cannot predict which way he's going
03:59to shift his weight,
04:00which foot he's going to want to play it with, and he just kills you.
04:05And you combine that with just how good his technique is, and his numbers are incredible.
04:09Like, over the last year in the top five leagues, he's taking people on five to six times a game,
04:15often more.
04:16But the first point of balance here, before I just fully take my trousers off for the rest of this
04:22video,
04:22you will note that while he is in the top three or four percent for the number of take-ons
04:27attempted,
04:28that drops down to only, only the top 20 percent for the take-ons completed.
04:34And that highlights the one, the one glaring weakness in his game currently, his strength.
04:41Despite being an alleged 5'10", and I say alleged because I believe football is talking about their height
04:47almost as little as I believe pro wrestlers, he is yet to really fill out his frame.
04:53The one way defenders do tend to stop him currently is just by out-muscling him, but again, he is
04:5922.
04:59I think that's probably okay at this stage of his career, and you will likely see him bulk up a
05:05bit more in the coming years.
05:07Which, given what he's already doing, is another scary, scary proposition.
05:12Anyway, though, back to this already frankly ridiculous graph,
05:16and it also contains quite possibly the maddest single thing about Florian Wirtz already.
05:22The number of touches he is averaging per game.
05:26Now, you remember the assist thing we opened the video with?
05:29Like, top five leagues in Europe, every single player, total number of assists.
05:33Let's do that again, right, but for touches.
05:35And you will notice his 78 touches.
05:38Well, first off, it jumps up to slightly over 80, because that 78's from one year,
05:42and this is the average over two years.
05:44So, well done him, right?
05:46Average number of touches per game, top five leagues in Europe,
05:48of every single player, he ranks 98th.
05:53Which is admittedly, it's not very exciting, right?
05:56Like, 98, okay, whatever, but just thinking about it now,
06:01defenders get a lot of just random touches, don't they?
06:03They'll work it around the back without really sort of doing anything.
06:07So, if we're talking about impact here,
06:09we could probably discount all the goalies and the defenders, right?
06:12So, he filtered them out, and that puts him 40th.
06:16And I mean, yeah, again, like, that's still obviously really good,
06:19because there's thousands upon thousands of players in Europe,
06:22but 40th isn't, it isn't really getting the blood pumping, is it?
06:25But, thing is, have you seen the 39 players who are ahead of him?
06:31Rodri, Kimmich, Toni Kroos, Granit Xhaka, Vettinian, Modric, Pedri, De Jong, Goretzka,
06:37not one of those 39 players above him is, by any stretch of the imagination, an attacker.
06:46They're almost exclusively number sixes or playing in a pivot,
06:50seeing the ball repeatedly in areas where they're not really likely to be consistently pressured.
06:57And then, 40th or otherwise, there is Florian Wirtz, a left-sided number 10,
07:03playing in the pocket, in front of the defence, going out on the left wing.
07:08The second highest number of assists to his name in all of Europe,
07:13just posting the same sort of involvement numbers
07:17as your tempo-setting, possession-retaining number sixes.
07:23And don't get me wrong, the world number 10s are on this list.
07:28De Bruyne is all the way down in 202nd, Martin Erdegaard is 408th,
07:33Mo Salah is 1,697th.
07:38And what that means is, in Florian Wirtz, what you're looking at
07:42is a completely unique profile of player.
07:46Like, with enough up here that he can go anywhere on the pitch
07:49and dictate the game, no matter what phase it's in.
07:53But with the feet, the quickness and the skill of just some made-up Brazilian footballer
07:58from the 1990s.
08:00So yeah, virtually no players in all of Europe touch the ball in the attacking third
08:04more than he does, because, obviously, that's exactly where he plays.
08:08But he's also in the top 6-7% for touches in the middle third as well,
08:13because when the game isn't here, it's usually here.
08:16So that's where he goes.
08:18And Liverpool, as daft as this is going to sound,
08:20because they literally play on complete opposite sides of the pitch,
08:23are not replacing Trent Alexander-Arnold with Frimpong,
08:26because he's too different a player.
08:28They are placing him, replacing him, that's English, with Wirtz.
08:32Because Liverpool aren't just losing right back with this transfer.
08:34They're losing their best passer.
08:36They're losing their best creator.
08:37They're losing their best tempo setter.
08:39And that player now, undeniably, will be Wirtz.
08:43And actually, if you look at the numbers side-by-side from last season,
08:46key passes or chances created per 90,
08:49Wirtz is outperforming him.
08:50I just, I know the bars are slightly confusing here,
08:53because I'm going to say Wirtz is better, even though it's smaller.
08:55But that's because his are compared to attackers,
08:58and Alexander-Arnold's are being compared to defenders.
09:00They're not like for like.
09:01So just look at the number.
09:03Just the number's what we want.
09:04He's got more key passes, slightly better expected assists,
09:07slightly more passes into the penalty area.
09:09And you can also just completely discount, by the way,
09:12passes into the final third,
09:13because Alexander-Arnold is a defender and Wirtz lives in the final third.
09:18So of course he won't be doing that.
09:20That's not a fair comparison, in my opinion.
09:22That's why it's all completely different.
09:24And don't get me wrong.
09:25For all I really rate, both Frimpong and Conor Bradley,
09:28they do offer you something completely different to Trent Alexander-Arnold,
09:32which is another way of saying they don't replicate what he did.
09:35Liverpool were going to have a major creativity shortfall in Alexander-Arnold's absence,
09:41unless they made a signing like this.
09:44And yeah, haha, not a bad one.
09:47But the question is, where do you play him?
09:50Because as discussed, he absolutely thrives in this sort of inside left number 10 role.
09:55And if I may just wave my magic wand for a second,
09:59you will note that Liverpool do not have one.
10:03So presuming, I'm going to put this down.
10:04So presuming they're not going to switch to a back three purely to accommodate,
10:08in which, whisper this, I actually think maybe they should consider,
10:13because if you're looking to protect the legs and the minutes of the ageing Salah and Van Dijk,
10:18then putting them in that kind of shape where much younger players could do their running for them,
10:23I think that would be quite good.
10:24But let's assume they're not doing that.
10:26In their current shape, this 4-3-3, which, yeah, let's be real,
10:29quite often feels like a 4-2-3-1, but I'll just move it back.
10:32I think that problem with his strength currently rules him out of playing in this sort of left-sided number
10:398 position.
10:40Plus, let's be real, you're not going to ditch Alexis McAllister.
10:44He's had an absolutely fantastic season, and he's vital to how Liverpool's overall structure works.
10:49So he's not going to play there.
10:50So the obvious solution is to use him out on this left-hand side,
10:54with the understanding that because McAllister will tuck a little bit and it'll look a bit more like this,
10:59he's sort of free to drift into the channel he likes,
11:01and if you go out and spend maybe a little bit more money on someone who can play this entire
11:06side on their own,
11:07then all of a sudden the expectation that he does the width goes away as well.
11:11So he's basically playing this left-sided number 10 position without playing this left-sided number 10 position.
11:17But then, and I'm sorry, I need this for a second, but then, and just hear me out on this
11:21one,
11:21if the expectation then becomes you do so much of your creating down this side,
11:26you've still got the only player in Europe out assisting him on the other.
11:31So it sort of feels like there's a slight imbalance there,
11:34because that effectively forces Salah to become the Gakpo of this system.
11:38The expectation will be that he constantly drifts from this wide position into the box,
11:42and he's got to challenge aerially, he's got to get on the end of things,
11:46and again, he's a fantastic creator.
11:49But I think, if we may just reset for a second, I've already done it, never mind,
11:53that there is a secret third option.
11:55I think you can play Florian Verts up front for Liverpool,
12:00with the expectation being that Gakpo and Salah both want to arrive into the box.
12:05Gakpo wants to do it without the ball, Salah wants to do it with the ball,
12:08and his job is to get out of there and feed them both.
12:12And Liverpool fans, you will not need reminding that you used to be amazing at this
12:16when you had Roberto Firmino up front,
12:18and now by adding, let's say, a Kerkhez to a Frimpong or a Bradley,
12:22you've got two athletes who can do all the width for you down that side,
12:26while Vert comes out of that central position,
12:29gets involved in this area he loves to be in,
12:32and there's four options in front of him for how to make things happen.
12:35Now, maybe that's not necessarily the greatest use for him,
12:39because he'd have to drop a whole long way back to get involved in earlier phases of play,
12:44and maybe in some games that could be a bit of a waste for him,
12:47but I think in certain matches against certain opponents,
12:50he would very quietly, not very quietly, very loudly be a revelation doing this.
12:55Plus, and I've got one more secret bit of praise to heap upon him for the end of the video,
12:59having him lead your line also gives you access to all of this.
13:05That is every single high turnover that Florian Wirtz managed in the last two years,
13:09and oh god, sorry, did I not mention that?
13:12Yeah, despite his lack of strength, he does have that dog in him.
13:17But Leverkusen aren't a massive high-pressing team,
13:19so his numbers don't leap off the page when you look at them,
13:22but when you watch him, he closes down really well,
13:25he does it very aggressively, he does it in a very structured way,
13:28he doesn't just go charging all over the place,
13:30and like everything else, you'll see he does sort of favour doing it with this left ten flavour.
13:36But will also, obviously, chase you all the way across the goddamn pitch if he feels he's got to.
13:41I love him, so to review, and I'm going to use this again,
13:45is he worth the hundred plus million that Liverpool are going to pay for him?
13:48Well, there is no such thing as a sure thing in football,
13:53but given who he is, what he does, where he is going, what they do, and who he's doing it
13:58with,
13:59I would say this is about as close to a hundred plus million pound sure thing as you will ever
14:05see.
14:05In fact, I'm just going to say it, the only way I can see this transfer failing
14:10is if he absolutely despises the Beatles,
14:13or turns out to be deathly allergic to a pot of scouse.
14:17He's going in my, me, FPL team, immediately.
14:21But yeah, I'm going to put that away now, because it makes me just get too intense.
14:24For some reason, that's Florian Virts, and I think it's going to be a massive success at Liverpool.
14:27What an exciting transfer.
14:29We haven't had one of these in a very long time.
14:31If you've enjoyed the video, Liverpool fans, if you too are rubbing your knees raw at the thought of this,
14:36please let us know in the comments below.
14:38Just, I don't know, how many goals is he going to score?
14:41How many millions of assists is he going to get?
14:43All thoughts, feelings, comments, everything else, absolutely welcome.
14:45Down below, you can get me across all the social medias.
14:48I forget what side it appears on.
14:49At Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
14:52I am dearly hoping that by the time this goes out, we have crossed the magic 100,000 subscriber threshold.
14:57But if not, if we haven't, Liverpool, you could be the ones who do that.
15:03There's something else you can win in football.
15:05You can make me get the 100,000 subs.
15:08Wouldn't that be nice for you?
15:09Wouldn't that just be something you'd love to brag about?
15:11Yes, it would.
15:11So please do click the button down below.
15:14I am overstimulated, thinking about this player.
15:17I'm going to go away and home, in that order.
15:21Bye.
15:22Auf Wiedersehen.
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