'Not producing anything': Steve Nicol thinks Arne Slot is soon going to have to drop 'invisible' Liverpool star
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While Liverpool supporters are soaking up what is turning out to be a terrific transfer deadline day for their club, the dust is also settling on a superb weekend win for the Reds.
It was not always pretty on Sunday, but Liverpool still got the job done against Arsenal, Dominik Szoboszlai securing the points with a luscious free-kick.
Szoboszlai deservedly took the headlines having fired in an unstoppable effort to beat David Raya, but he was not the only Liverpool player in the news.
Florian Wirtz has been creating plenty of chatter for all the right reasons since joining from Bayer Leverkusen this summer, but Sunday was the first sign of that beginning to change.
Wirtz was slammed for a poor first-half performance in which he seemed unable to keep the ball or find another red shirt.
And after witnessing such an ineffective display against a title rival, former Liverpool player Steve Nicol has suggested that Wirtz might soon find himself dropped.
Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images
It is still very early into Wirtz’s Liverpool career to write him off.
Nevertheless, the £116m fee paid to get him out of Germany means the spotlight is already on the 22-year-old.
And according to Nicol, Wirtz, who was signed to provide a creative spark for Liverpool, is actually hindering the team’s performance right now.
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“How long does Arne Slot continue to put up with Wirtz’s… invisibility, shall we say?” the pundit said on ESPN FC.
I mean, seriously.
“It’s got to the stage where he’s getting it and you’re thinking he’s going to lose it, you’re not going ‘great, they’ve got him on the ball, something’s going to happen’, because he’s not producing anything whatsoever.”
“Arne Slot is going to have to think about how long he’s going to continue putting up with Wirtz not contributing,” Nicol continued.
“He certainly doesn’t contribute defensively and when he’s not contributing going forward you can’t get away with it so much.
“He’s certainly going to have a problem when Szoboszlai is going to be moved from right-back because how he’s playing and what he’s producing way outweighs what Florian Wirtz is doing, so eventually Arne Slot is going to have to make a decision.”
Some may dismiss Nicol’s comments as typical hysteria surrounding a big-name addition.
But some will no doubt be concerned at Wirtz’s form.
The Germany international was expected to have a bigger impact on the team having come in as a ready-made addition.
Despite that, it is important to take into account that Wirtz is still young, is learning a new league and system and has faced three incredibly difficult opponents so far.
There were more encouraging signs in the second-half as he appeared to get more used to what the game required.
While Wirtz is not immune from being dropped, and Szoboszlai does deserve to start at the moment, we don’t think Slot will jump the gun on this any time soon.