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Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson says some of the verdicts being offered on Florian Wirtz so far since the former Bayer Leverkusen playmaker's $157 million (£116 million) transfer have been "unfair".
"I thought he was outstanding; excellent," Robertson told reporters in Germany, including from the Liverpool ECHO, after the Reds won 5-1 at the Deutsche Bank Park stadium and the 22-year-old got his first couple of assists. "I thought he grew and grew into the game, especially the second half.
"Players around him helped him a lot. Curtis Jones was outstanding and I thought the three midfielders helped us gain the momentum and keep the ball.
"Flo has been really good since he came here. People focus on the number of goals and assists, but at times, it's unfair as he's created a hell of a lot of chances.
"On Wednesday, some of the chances he created ended up as an assist. Hopefully he can take a lot from this performance."
After losing four games on the spin heading into the Frankfurt clash, Virgil van Dijk brought the players together for a meeting, which appeared to work as Liverpool put in a much-improved showing.
"The message from the leaders in the group after Manchester United was 'don't panic'," Robertson said.
"It was more 'keep doing what you're doing, keep focusing, and as long as we stick together as a group, everything will turn'.
"If you look to your left and right, the quality we have in our squad is unbelievable. If we show that on a day-to-day basis then we will be successful.
"We always talk in the changing room — even when we were winning five games in a row, we talk. So that's normal after games, whether we do it in small groups or big groups.
"When we go 3-1 up (in Frankfurt) you see lads starting to enjoy themselves and that's what you want, people playing with a smile on their face and people enjoying playing for this club, people scoring goals, people assisting goals.
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"Winning 5-1 in the Champions League is quite rare, it doesn't happen very often, and you have to enjoy nights like this and hopefully a lot of lads take a lot from it.
"But it's only one win and we have a lot of work to do. We need to put a winning streak together rather than a losing streak."
Liverpool.com says: Wirtz has been good in patches but he looked the most comfortable that he has been so far against Frankfurt.
Head coach Arne Slot will be hoping that he can build on that, with the German having done enough to retain his place at the weekend against Brentford. If has always felt like getting an assist or a goal could instill him with the required confidence.
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