In their away match at Manchester United, Liverpool FC could secure third place in the Premier League. Florian Wirtz will play a key role in this, and his positive development is “clear and obvious” to Arne Slot.
Three points separate Manchester United and Liverpool FC ahead of their head-to-head match on Sunday afternoon. With an away win at Old Trafford, Arne Slot’s team would swap places with the Red Devils in the standings and return to third place for the first time since Matchday 10.
“We are aware that this is a very important game, not only because we are playing against Man United, but certainly also to qualify for the Champions League and reach the highest possible position in the table,” said Slot, looking ahead to the prestigious clash in Manchester.
Will they secure their fourth straight league win?
Although they were eliminated from the Champions League by Paris in the meantime, the Reds have won all three of their most recent league matches. However, the coach did not see his team playing at their highest possible level against Fulham (2-0), Everton (2-1), or Crystal Palace (3-1): “I believe we can play at a much higher level than we currently are,” Slot explained.
After “a lot of bad luck” so far this season, the team has had “more luck than ever before this season” in the last three matches. While the winning streak is not undeserved, “I don’t think those were our three best performances of the season,” said the Dutchman.
Florian Wirtz, on the other hand, used those appearances to continue drawing attention to himself and boost his stats with a goal against Palace and an assist against Fulham. While the German has seven goals and ten assists across all competitions, nine of those points came in the Premier League—though none against the current top-seven teams. A cause for concern?
Certainly not for Slot, who is “100 percent” convinced that Wirtz will score or assist against teams in the top third of the table in the future. “That’s actually a coincidence, because we still have three more matches against such teams,” the Reds coach clarified, adding regarding Wirtz: “So that gives him three more chances.”
Far more important to Slot than such statistics is the long-term development of the German international, who celebrates his 23rd birthday on Sunday—and that is, in his view, “already very clear and obvious” even after ten months.
As an illustration of this, Slot cited a scene from the most recent match: “In the 93rd minute against Crystal Palace, winning a tackle on the sideline, winning a throw-in for us, then sprinting 40 meters and shooting the ball into the corner—I’m not entirely sure he would have been able to do that eight months ago.”
Slot is certain that this development “will continue, because he’s only 22” and already “a top-class player” at this point. In this regard, too, Wirtz joins the list of new signings “we made last summer: They’re all at an age where we can only expect them to get better, as long as they stay injury-free.”