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Eight games into his Liverpool career, Florian Wirtz still hasn’t found the back of the net or set up a teammate. For a player who cost more than £100 million, that statistic stands out. But for those who have followed the young German’s rise, the slow start is less about failure and more about adaptation — to a new system, a new league, and a new way of life.

The Weight of the Fee

Liverpool’s record move for Wirtz came with heavy expectations. Supporters anticipated instant magic, the same creative flair that made him the star of Bayer Leverkusen’s historic double-winning side. Yet as commentator Kev Hatchard pointed out, the fee has distorted perceptions. “He was always going to move for big money,” Hatchard said. “Whether to Bayern, City, or Madrid — that tells you how highly he’s rated. But this start has been overanalyzed because of the number on his back.”

In truth, Wirtz hasn’t been poor. He’s created more chances than any other Liverpool player so far, according to Opta. The problem is that his influence isn’t translating into tangible results. His smooth touches, clever passes, and positional awareness remain intact — but Premier League football moves at a different speed.

“It’s like saying to a player, you’ve got two seconds per action — now you’ve got 0.7,” Hatchard explained. “See how you deal with that.”

A System Still Finding Itself

Seb Stafford-Bloor, The Athletic’s German football writer, argued that Liverpool’s collective form explains a lot. The team itself has been uneven, mixing dramatic wins with disjointed performances. “They’ve had their late winners and been largely successful,” he said, “but they haven’t reached the standards of last season.”

Wirtz arrived as part of a side still in transition — two new fullbacks, new forwards, and a midfield reshaped around Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister. Integrating into that patchwork has been challenging. At Leverkusen, the rhythm was constant; every player seemed to move in tune with Wirtz. At Liverpool, that rhythm is still forming.

During his Leverkusen years, Wirtz averaged around 80 touches per match, a sign of how deeply embedded he was in the team’s structure. At Liverpool, that number has dropped sharply. “At Leverkusen, everything was geared toward getting him the ball in the right spaces,” Stafford-Bloor said. “At Liverpool, understandably, they’re not there yet.”

Still Salah’s Team

There’s also the small matter of hierarchy. At Leverkusen, Wirtz was the conductor. At Liverpool, he’s one of many soloists in a band still led by Mohamed Salah. “It’s still largely Salah’s team,” Hatchard said. “That’s natural — he’s world-class, he delivers. But that doesn’t make it easy for a new signing to assert himself.”

The result is occasional congestion. Players like Cody Gakpo and Rayan Cherki (when he starts) drift into the same zones Wirtz likes to occupy. The chemistry will come, Hatchard believes, but “they’re still figuring out where everyone’s supposed to be.”

Life Off the Pitch

Adjustment extends beyond football. Moving from the structured calm of Leverkusen to the chaos of the Premier League involves social and personal hurdles too. Wirtz, only 21, is living abroad for the first time. “How are you adjusting to English life, English food?” Stafford-Bloor asked rhetorically. “You’re learning all that while performing at the highest level.”

Even small disruptions — new routines, new teammates, the relentless media glare — can affect form. Jamie Carragher recently argued that Wirtz should be dropped “until Liverpool rediscover their rhythm.” Stafford-Bloor disagreed. “This is what happens when you buy a complex player,” he said. “He influences the game in many ways, but that takes time to balance.”

The “Bundesliga Tax”

Beyond individual adaptation, Wirtz’s transfer revived an old debate: do Premier League clubs overpay for Bundesliga stars? Critics call it the “Bundesliga tax.” But as Hatchard and Stafford-Bloor both noted, the label misses the point.

“This isn’t a Bundesliga tax — it’s a Premier League tax,” Stafford-Bloor said. “Because the league is so rich, everyone outside England sees you as a cash cow.”

German clubs, for their part, have embraced that dynamic. They buy young, develop players quickly, and sell high. The system works both ways: English academies offload surplus talent to the Bundesliga, where players like Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham matured before returning to England for huge sums.

That production line remains a key reason Premier League teams continue to scout Germany so heavily. “German clubs trust youth,” Hatchard said. “They let 18-year-olds lead teams, make mistakes, grow. That’s a major attraction.”

Lessons from Others

Some Bundesliga exports have adapted immediately — Erling Haaland being the most spectacular example. Others, like Kai Havertz and Timo Werner, needed longer to find consistency. The common factor, as former striker Jan Åge Fjørtoft put it, is patience.

“The Premier League is the best league in the world,” Fjørtoft said. “Even the best players need time. Wirtz will be fine.”

That patience may be in short supply at Liverpool, where every misstep draws scrutiny. But inside the club, belief remains strong. They pursued Wirtz for years, convinced by his vision, composure, and rare understanding of tempo — the ability to slow or speed up a game with a single touch.

The Bigger Picture

For now, the German playmaker sits at the intersection of two truths: he hasn’t yet lived up to the fee, but he’s also shown enough flashes to justify faith. The small body feints, the disguised through-balls, the scanning before every reception — all the traits that made him unplayable in Germany are still visible.

Time, and familiarity, should bridge the gap between potential and production. As the season progresses and Liverpool’s shape settles, so too should Wirtz’s influence.

And if you’re looking for level-headed guidance amid the noise, the balanced approach of TipsGG’s football tips might serve you better than the knee-jerk reactions flooding social media.

The Final Word

Football’s impatience is relentless, but history tends to reward quality. Kai Havertz went from early skepticism to scoring Chelsea’s Champions League–winning goal. Kevin De Bruyne once flopped at Chelsea before returning as one of the league’s greatest ever. Wirtz, with his intelligence and edge, has the same capacity to evolve.

He’s 21. He’s learning. And beneath the silence of eight goalless games lies the quiet rhythm of a player adjusting, not failing.

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