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Germany legends Bastien Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm are in agreement about Liverpool attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz after the $157 million (£116 million) man's slow-ish start to life on Merseyside.
Wirtz scored 57 goals and notched 63 assists in 197 appearances for Bayer Leverkusen before Liverpool broke its transfer record to bring him to England. It later smashed that record again to add Alexander Isak to its roster, bringing him in from Newcastle United.
But while Wirtz is yet to score or assist for Liverpool, his performances have shown glimpses of what he can do. He was a strong performer against Chelsea last weekend and could have had several assists had his teammates not been wasteful.
Schweinsteiger and Lahm are both backing Wirtz to ignite with Liverpool, believing that he just needs some time to adjust to his new surroundings. Isak and Mohamed Salah have not been in form yet, but when they are, that will help too.
"We have to give the players a bit of time," Schweinsteiger said, via RTL "Especially when you move from the Bundesliga to the Premier League, you also have to adjust a bit.
"I've experienced that myself. He will delight us all in the future. Florian Wirtz is a fantastic footballer, a great character. We should be happy that we have such a player in Germany."
"I'm not worried about Florian Wirtz at all because he's such an outstanding, brilliant player who simply makes his teammates better," Lahm added. "Quality and class always prevail, and that will absolutely be the case with Florian Wirtz."
Schweinsteiger and Lahm are not the only Germany legends to back Wirtz this week. Rudi Voller, who is the national team's sporting director, also had positive words to say about him.
"I deliberately watched a few Liverpool games with him," Voller, who is Germany's sporting director, told Sky Germany. "He does an incredible amount, runs a lot, sprints a lot, and also drops deep.
"But he doesn’t get passed to the way he was used to in Leverkusen or the national team. You have to work on that over the course of weeks and months.
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"I know he’s not one of those divas in his position who stand still and hang their heads after missing three passes. Florian isn’t like that.
"He’s not only an exceptional footballer, but he also has a superb character. He’ll always give it his all from the first to the last minute, always going for it. He also has incredible running stats. He’ll prevail."
Wirtz will represent Germany this week in World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg and Northern Ireland. He scored against the latter during the September international break.
Liverpool.com says: Wirtz is simply too good not to work out at Liverpool eventually. He needs those around him to start scoring when he creates chances for them, and the narrative will change very quickly.
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