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Florian Wirtz has enjoyed his time away from the Liverpool spotlight, scoring a world-class free kick while on Germany duty. But as he returns to Anfield, the scrutiny over his start to the season will kick in once more.
It's not as though Wirtz has been terrible; he was a big part of the momentum swing in the second half against Arsenal, helping to establish some much-needed control on the ball. But when you're a potential record signing, you don't even get three games before people start writing you off.
Of course, that moniker has already been taken from Wirtz by Alexander Isak, potentially lifting some of the pressure. But the arrival of the new striker has pundits asking a new question about how everyone is going to fit together in one team.
The truth is clearly that not everybody can fit in one XI — and that's more or less fine. It's a long season, and Arne Slot will be eyeing success on four fronts.
Players like Cody Gakpo, Hugo Ekitike, and even Rio Ngumoha could legitimately feel put out to be left out of the team after their starts to the campaign. But the other side of that coin is that these are genuinely elite options to call upon to change a game from the bench.
And that's not to say they will all be relegated to the ranks of the substitutes for every fixture. Competition is bound to be fierce, and rotation is likely too, with everyone sure to get a reasonable share of minutes.
Naturally, Wirtz will not be immunue from this internal competition. But it's also true that his price tag does not imply Liverpool envisages him sitting out too many big contests.
This, says Steve Nicol, is a problem for Wirtz and Liverpool. He believes the arrival of Isak means that Slot will now struggle to guarantee the playmaker a sustained bedding-in period in the side.
"Had Liverpool not had such a big squad, you could just say to this guy, look, 10, 11, 12 games, just forget about it," Nicol told ESPN FC. "You’re playing first 10 games.
"But because of the squad they have, I’m not so sure Arne Slot can do that. Maybe that 10 or 12 games, maybe gets cut in half because of the quality you’ve got.
"Because if you want to win the Premier League, you can’t carry passengers. And right now Florian unfortunately is a bit of a passenger because he’s not contributing to any side of the ball."
This is an unbelievably harsh assessment. Wirtz has the most shot-creating actions of anyone in the Liverpool squad so far, helping to tee up almost four efforts on goal per game.
That reflects one of his chief skill-sets, taking the ball in dangerous areas and finding ways to advance it into even more promising positions while under pressure. Those abilities will only get sharper as he adjusts to the pace of the Premier League.
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Even so, there is no denying that Liverpool now has one of the strongest attacking units the league has ever seen. Wirtz won't be guaranteed his place forever, as Nicol articulated:
"The problem he’s got is because of Isak coming in, because of Ekitike coming in, because how good Gakpo’s been... you can’t drop Salah," explained the pundit. That front four plus Wirtz would be an attacking line-up, to say the least.
So perhaps in a way Slot really does have a problem. It certainly falls into the "nice problems to have" column, but picking the line-up each week is not going to be easy.
However, Wirtz can at least take comfort in the fact that there will be no snap assessments being made at Anfield. Slot knows that he has not been a passenger so far, and also knows that he is only going to get better — Liverpool's two record signings will be working in tandem before long, and the biggest problem will be for the rest of the division.
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