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German legend Rudi Voller has backed $157 million (£116 million) signing Florian Wirtz to be a success at Liverpool despite some criticism as he continues to get used to life at Anfield.
Wirtz impressed when he came off the bench against Chelsea at the weekend but he is yet to score a goal or provide an assist. In part, though, that is down to the finishing of his teammates — he is creating chances.
"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.
"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 play for his national team in World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg and Northern Ireland during the international break before returning to Merseyside for Liverpool's next game - a must-win against Manchester United.
"To say that he’s an artist doesn’t do him justice," Slot said a couple of weeks ago. "He is an artist, but he can be mean as well.
"Otherwise, you can’t reach the levels he’s reaching. He works incredibly hard here in this building to get better and better and better.
"So that mentality he has inside of him and you also see that mentality when he loses the ball once or twice. He’s not going to hide, he wants the third one, he wants the fourth one.
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"He’s adjusting, in my opinion, very well. It gets better and better every single game. He always wants to have the ball, even if he has a few moments where we feel like he could do better.
"He just always wants to keep the ball, always keeps on trying. And he gets better and better, and fitter and fitter. That’s maybe the thing that matters most, because we don’t have to teach him how to play football. He just has to adapt to the intensity levels of the Premier League."
Liverpool.com says: Wirtz played really well against Chelsea and looked confident. He just needs a couple of those around him to hit form and the assists will start to flow.
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