Florian Wirtz's unseen work finally paying off but biggest Liverpool test still to come

Florian Wirtz lifted a huge weight from his shoulders after scoring his first goal for Liverpool, with the German international's hard work behind the scenes finally paying off

Florian Wirtz finally scored his first goal for Liverpool against Wolves(Image: Getty Images)

You could almost see the weight being lifted off Florian Wirtz’s shoulders as he leapt into the air to celebrate his first goal for Liverpool.

It’s been a long time coming, but the German international finally has something to show for his growing influence on the Reds this season. Not only is he passing the eye test, but he’s now getting the results that will help silence his detractors, with an assist against Tottenham and now a goal against Wolves.

Yes, that is still not the return that anyone at Liverpool - Wirtz included - would have been hoping for after he completed his record-breaking move from Bayer Leverkusen, but then that might also be underestimating the challenge a player still in his early 20s faces when moving to the Premier League.

Wirtz’s quality has never been in doubt, but his early days as a Red showed that his physicality needed some work. It was telling that many of his better performances were coming in the Champions League during those early stages.

As we head into 2026, all of the pieces look as though they are coming together now. Wirtz has certainly bulked up, as Arne Slot acknowledged himself, and it’s that work behind the scenes that is now seeing him impact games in the way Liverpool hoped he would during the summer.

"I saw in one moment against Brighton where he took the ball off Dom [Szoboszlai], he dribbled and a player came to him and he pushed him away and kept on dribbling. Then he provided a cut back cross for Hugo [Ekitike] who shot over the bar,” Slot explained ahead of the clash with Tottenham.

Arne Slot has seen just how hard Florian Wirtz has been working behind the scenes(Image: Getty Images)

"Later he won the duel with (Brighton's) Jan Paul van Hecke that led to the counter attack with the shot from Mo [Salah]. In those moments you see it gets easier for him. It takes a lot, a lot, a lot of effort for him to play in this intensity but he is getting used to it. That is my take.

"Both [fitness and weight work]. A lot of them have grown in kilograms, in muscle. That's one thing. And secondly, if you are only in the gym you cannot be prepared for 90 minutes of Premier League football. It is about playing those games, I would say training but we hardly ever do that, so it's playing, playing, playing.”

The harder, better, faster, stronger version of Wirtz will hopefully now be ready to take the Premier League by storm in the New Year - and Liverpool will need that.

There’s no hiding behind the fact that the first half of the campaign has not gone to plan. We still have 20 games to go in the Premier League, but already it looks as though we can write off the Reds’ hopes of defending their title.

Florian Wirtz's biggest test will come in the New Year(Image: Getty Images)

Even now, having gone the last seven games unbeaten across all competitions, they still look far from convincing, and that is more than a little worrying considering what lies in wait.

Let’s face it, it would have been a monumental failure had Liverpool not taken six points off a Tottenham side that hit the self-destruct button, and a Wolves side that is in real danger of setting some new unwanted records this season, and those aren’t the games that will determine whether Wirtz has turned a corner.

He won’t have long to wait for his true test though, with a trip to league leader Arsenal waiting on January 8. Liverpool bought Wirtz to make the difference against the best sides around, and that’s when he can show exactly why he has gone to so much effort without anyone seeing it.