Jaw-dropping Florian Wirtz stat from win v Brentford was quite the answer to ridiculous criticism

Below is a summary of the full article. Click here for the full version from Empire Of The Kop or go back to LFC Live.

Florian Wirtz has had to endure a barrage of criticism from numerous pundits throughout his time at Liverpool, but he showed in the win over Brentford today that the agenda against him is frankly ridiculous.More than once in recent weeks, Jamie Carragher has called for the Germany playmaker to be dropped from the Reds’ starting XI, while Didi Hamann questioned whether the 23-year-old has the self-confidence to succeed at Anfield.Jason Cundy joined the carousel of defamation earlier this week by describing our number 7 as ‘the biggest waste of money the Premier League has ever seen’ (talkSPORT), with the £100m signing from Bayer Leverkusen in June 2025 yet to score this season.Wirtz sets Premier League record for LiverpoolWirtz wasn’t on the scoresheet against Brentford this afternoon, but he claimed the assist for Victor Munoz’s equaliser and also helped himself to a niche distinction for one underlying performance metric.OptaJoe football data editor Michael Reid – a treasure trove of fascinating Liverpool statistics – took to X with the information that the 23-year-old created nine chances against the Bees today (all from open play), the most of anyone for the Reds in a single Premier League match since that metric began to be recorded in 2003/04.(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)Want more Empire of the Kop coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trustWirtz now linking up effectively with his teammatesIt’d be fair to state that Wirtz’s goal return of seven in 58 LFC appearances is underwhelming for how much quality he’s capable of demonstrating in the final third of the pitch, but it’d be wrong to get bogged down on that statistic alone.Admittely he became much more of a threat after Brentford had Yehor Yarmolyuk sent off just before half-time, but nine key passes in one game is still a tremendous feat from the German.He now has assists in consecutive matches after also setting up Bradley Barcola’s second goal in the midweek win over LASK, and there are signs that perhaps he’s starting to form dangerous link-ups with his fellow attackers.It’ll take a more consistent output for Wirtz to truly win over his biggest detractors, but it should be very interesting to hear the public opinion on his performance today.Anyone slating him over his display against Brentford has clearly pre-determined that he’s to be criticised no matter what and has totally ignored the impact that he had on his team’s come-from-behind victory.