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<\/p>\nThe German was excellent in the first half of Liverpool’s Premier League trip to Sunderland, with the German hitting the post with a well-placed left shot<\/p>\n
21:39, 11 Feb 2026Updated 23:24, 11 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
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Steven Gerrard compared Florian Wirtz to Zinedine Zidane<\/p>\n
Steven Gerrard compared Florian Wirtz to Zinedine Zidane in the first half of Liverpool\u2019s Premier League encounter against Sunderland on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Wirtz was the standout performer in the opening 45 at the Stadium of Light<\/a> and produced four shots, two of which were on target, while he managed more touches in the Sunderland box than any other player.<\/p>\n His best moment came when he fastened onto a Cody Gakpo<\/a> pass, teeing pup a left foot effort. The shot clipped the post and was the closest Liverpool came to opening the scoring. It was a display that Gerrard <\/a>was hugely impressed with.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Steven Gerrard issues Liverpool points demand from next 4 games after Arne Slot agreement<\/a>READ MORE: Wataru Endo adds to Liverpool injury woes after being forced off vs Sunderland<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHe has been Liverpool\u2019s best player,\u201d the former Liverpool skipper said during TNT Sports\u2019 half-time coverage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like he is going to be the one to open the door. He is very effective when he stays the other side of the midfield.<\/p>\n \u201cHe doesn\u2019t need to come deep to receive it. He has got to allow [Ryan] Gravenberch and [Alexis] Mac Allister to do that. As soon as they change the speed and the tempo of the game, it allows them to penetrate.\u201d<\/p>\n Reviewing the footage of Wirtz\u2019s post-hitting effort, Gerrard continued: \u201cHe is the one and this where he\u2019s brilliant.<\/p>\n \u201cAn early pass, a fantastic touch, it\u2019s almost Zidane-like. He takes it back away from the defender, so he hasn\u2019t got time to defend it, and he\u2019s really unlucky with that effort.<\/p>\n Wirtz has impressed in recent weeks(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s looked like the likely one and the one to open the door with his quality.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, it wasn’t Wirtz who grabbed the decisive moment at the Stadium of Light, but Virgil van Dijk.<\/p>\n The Liverpool captain rose highest in the box to plant a header into the Sunderland goal, although Habib Diarra did apply the final touch before the ball nestled in the back of net.<\/p>\n Liverpool’s 1-0 win means it closed the gap to Manchester United and Chelsea in fourth and fifth, while the Reds are the first visiting side to take all three points from the Stadium of Light this season.<\/p>\n The only sour note of the night came with Wataru Endo replaced with what appeared to be a serious ankle injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The German was excellent in the first half of Liverpool’s Premier League trip to Sunderland, with the German…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,33202,739,561,82,101109],"class_list":{"0":"post-469352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-florian-wirtz","11":"tag-liverpool-fc","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-steven-gerrard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Florian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0_GettyImages-2260133091.jpg\")
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