Arne Slot reveals he took a risk with Florian Wirtz and made an exception with the No. 7’s fitness after he played 75 minutes following two games out with an injury.
Wirtz was only expected to take a spot on the bench at West Ham as he was only scheduled to return to training on Saturday after missing the last two games with a muscle injury.
He was instead named in the starting lineup as one of four changes and put in a performance that was among Liverpool’s best, offering the link to the forwards that had been missing.
The German ought to have received an injection of confidence from his 75-minute outing, though Slot revealed the club’s medical staff were urging him to substitute Wirtz earlier.
“The performance staff were constantly telling me, ‘He needs to go out, he needs to go out’, because he’s been out for one-and-a-half, two weeks and he only trained once,” Slot told reporters.
“So to a certain extent maybe it was a bit of a risk to keep him in the team, but some situations ask for an exception, and I think today was one of them.”
It was an exception as Liverpool have been otherwise quite restrained in their use of players returning from injury, often favouring a substitute appearance over a start in the first game back.
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But it was a risk worth taking for Slot as he sought to arrest the losing streak, with Wirtz unlucky, again, to walk away without an assist after several impressive passes into the box.
Slot’s assessment of Wirtz’ performance vs. West Ham
As for an assessment on the No. 7’s performance, Slot was pleased by Wirtz’s ability to find Liverpool’s “extra midfielder” and create openings for the forwards.
“Good, as the team played a very good game,” Slot said of Wirtz’s outing. “Recently I’ve been asked a lot about individuals when they’ve played maybe not a game of their usual standards and I’ve pointed out the team every single time.
“Now after a very positive performance from Florian, I can acknowledge that, but I also want to emphasise on the team performance that was much better than some others.”
On specifically what he asked from Wirtz, Slot added: “Like I asked all of them, play to your own standards.
“We tried to create an extra midfielder and he was very important for us to find every time the extra midfielder.
“He was good when he made a dribble, he was really good in his one-touch balls. I even remember a moment when he played the ball diagonally into the 18-yard box to Cody Gakpo, which then didn’t lead to a shot so no xG value.
“But we had many of those moments and he was part of many of those moments, I think. So a good game.”