Florian Wirtz's Struggles at Liverpool: Time to Prove Himself

Liverpool did not spend big on Florian Wirtz to watch him drift through games. Two seasons. That is roughly the window Dietmar Hamann believes the German has to prove he belongs at Anfield – and even that might be generous.

Wirtz is still searching for a spark at the start of the 2026-27 campaign. The talent is obvious, the reputation huge, the fee enormous. The output? Nowhere near enough for a player signed to be the face of Liverpool’s next era.

Hamann, speaking to GOAL in association with Betinia NJ, did not bother dressing it up.

“He's got to start playing well. He has to start influencing the game,” he said, when asked what Wirtz needs from this season and when the exit rumours might begin to swirl.

Hamann sees a player who floats through matches rather than grabs them. A luxury talent who has not yet earned the right to be treated like one.

“He's probably not got that respect from the other players that sometimes maybe he can stop defending,” Hamann explained. The idea is clear: great creators are often given licence to cheat a little, to conserve energy, because others are willing to win the ball back for them.

Players accept that trade-off if the magic comes often enough. If, as Hamann put it, “when he does get the ball 10 times, six, seven, eight times, something's going to happen.”

“That’s just not the case,” he added.

Right now, Wirtz is running. A lot. Too much, in Hamann’s eyes. Tracking back, chasing, trying to show he is a team player because he knows he is not yet deciding games in the final third.

“Now he's working very hard going backwards. I think sometimes he's doing too much,” Hamann said. “He wants to help the team because he sees that he can’t influence the game going forward.”

The balance is wrong. Liverpool did not buy Wirtz to be a ball-winner. They bought him to break lines, to set up goals, to score them. Until he does that consistently, respect in the dressing room will be limited and patience in the stands will shrink.

Hamann counted “maybe a handful of games” last season when Wirtz truly delivered. For a marquee signing in the Premier League, that is nowhere near enough.

The physicality of English football is the easy explanation, and it has followed Wirtz since he arrived. Hamann accepts it is a factor, but he has seen this film before. He namechecked Juan Sebastian Veron, who arrived in England with a world-class reputation and left quickly after failing to impose himself.

“Some just can't do it or don't want to do it,” Hamann said.

Early on, the former Liverpool midfielder was willing to wait. “The first two or three months, give him time,” he recalled. “I said he's too good to fail.” But as the season dragged on, his view hardened.

“Once it went past Christmas, I said, I don't think he's going to crack it anymore because it's too long now. Because expectations are not getting any less.”

That pressure has not eased. Wirtz was substituted again after 60 minutes in Liverpool’s opening game of the new campaign. The clock is ticking loudly.

“If he doesn't start influencing games in the next three or four weeks,” Hamann warned, “by the time we have that international break, which is longer this year, I think we have a lot of paper talk, a lot of discussions, whether the club should have bought him… And maybe him thinking, ‘well, maybe this is not for me’.”

Hamann even floated the prospect of a mid-season solution if the malaise continues.

“I think something will happen because for a player of that magnitude, of that stature, the amount of money he costs, it's simply not enough. You've got to find a solution somehow, maybe even in winter, if things don't get better.”

The debate over how to unlock Wirtz has rumbled on since he arrived. Is he a classic No.10, pulling strings between the lines? Or is he more dangerous starting from the left, drifting inside onto his stronger foot?

For Hamann, the positional argument is a sideshow.

“He was bought to be the main man,” he said. That status brings responsibility, not excuses. “I wouldn't blame it on the position that he plays on the left.”

Hamann recalled that, a year earlier, the plan was to use Wirtz as a No.10. That only works if he delivers the numbers that role demands.

“If you've got a number 10 who doesn't create the chances or doesn't score enough goals, then obviously somebody else has to play – especially with [Bradley] Barcola coming in.”

Competition has sharpened the edges. Barcola’s arrival only intensifies the scrutiny on Wirtz’s place in the side and his long-term future at Anfield.

Hamann also questioned whether Liverpool were too gentle with Wirtz when his struggles first became clear.

“I know everybody said how well he does in training and all this,” he said. “And there does come a point, and I think the point was last year after Christmas, where somebody should have said, ‘listen lad, either you do it or in the summer, we see what's happening in the World Cup, maybe we've got to find a solution’. Because they can't wait forever.”

They still can’t. The new season has barely begun, but the narrative around Wirtz is already set: prove you’re the star Liverpool paid for, or accept that this chapter may close far sooner than anyone expected.

For a player once branded “too good to fail”, the next few weeks will show whether that line was faith – or a misjudgment Liverpool cannot afford.