6 hours ago
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Gary Lineker and Micah Richards agreed that Arne Slot made the right decision by dropping Florian Wirtz to the bench for Liverpool's game against Aston Villa on Saturday.
The Dutch boss raised eyebrows when he named Alexis Mac Allister ahead of the German in the line-up, but it proved to be a smart call as Liverpool won 2-0 to end a four-game losing run in the league.
Wirtz came on in the second half, but his absence from the team that started the game only poses further questions about where Slot will fit him into the side in the long run. Richards and Lineker are both of the opinion that Wirtz should be slowly eased into the team, as it will help to take the pressure off him.
Richards said: "If you have Wirtz, and at the moment, he’s not quite up to speed for the Premier League, but they spent £100 million on him, so it’s difficult.
"It was 100 percent the right decision that he [Arne Slot] made, without a doubt. He had to do it.
"But in terms of the money spent, they’ve spent a lot, though they’ve also lost a lot.
"And I know we talked about Trent [Alexander-Arnold] before and all that sort of thing. Of course, you’re going to miss that calibre of player.
"Liverpool now just have to go back to what they did last season, slowly but surely move Wirtz into the side, whether that’s on the left, maybe for Gakpo at some point.
"But the Premier League is too fast and furious, and he [Wirtz] needs time to adapt."
Lineker agreed, as he said: "It would also be good for Wirtz to come back into the team when there’s confidence in the squad.
“I think that would be sensible man management at the moment, take him out of the firing line a little bit, and then bring him on. Just because we know how good he is.
"I mean, Wirtz is a really good player, and you don’t buy these players for the first three months. You buy them for years ahead.
“He’s an exceptionally talented young player. We’ve watched so much of him over the last year or two at different places, whether it’s for the national team or when he was at Bayer Leverkusen, and he’s so gifted.
“It will come good for him as long as he’s mentally strong enough to deal with the situation at the moment, because it won’t be easy. Don’t think he’s not suffering a little bit from this.”
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