5 hours ago
14
Florian Wirtz will start for Liverpool against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium this afternoon.
Arne Slot benched the German for their 2-0 win over Aston Villa last weekend but he returned in midweek against Real Madrid and looks set to start on the left wing again. Alexander Isak, meanwhile, makes the bench.
Arne Slot is retaining the midfield formula of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, and Dominik Szoboszlai which has seen them win both of those games and indeed the league title last season.
Moving Wirtz to the left flank is the method Slot is using to give him game time for now after signing the 22-year-old for a whopping £116million from Bayer Leverkusen over the summer.
In the long-term, there is an acknowledgement that Wirtz's preferred position is the number 10 role while his shifting out wide also comes at the expense of Cody Gakpo.
His selection comes after Slot angrily swiped down Arsene Wenger's claim that he 'destroyed' his midfield to shoehorn Wirtz into the side.
Florian Wirtz will start for Liverpool against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium
Alexander Isak makes the bench after missing several games due to an injury
'Everyone has a right to his own opinion and many of them have,' said Slot. 'That is the nice thing about football, that everyone has his opinion about it.
'If I need open-heart surgery, I am not going to tell the surgeon what he needs to do but about football everyone is telling you what the best thing is to do but that that is also the nice thing about football because everyone knows it so we can talk about it.'
Wenger alleged that Wirtz had been told he could play number 10 as a persuasive tool to pry him from Leverkusen amid interest from Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
The legendary French manager said on BeIN Sports: 'Liverpool is an interesting example. When Wirtz had the choice between going to Bayern Munich or Liverpool, he said to Liverpool: "I come to you if I play No 10. I do not want to play wide."
'Liverpool, to get him, they say okay. They started him and they destroyed their midfield - which was (Ryan) Gravenberch, (Alexis) Mac Allister, (Dominik) Szoboszlai. To play Wirtz, they took Szoboszlai out.
'What have they done against Aston Villa? They have gone back to their midfield of last year. And tonight [against Madrid], they play Wirtz — but I'm sure that Wirtz will play on the side. The manager has said: "If you want to play again, you will have to play wide because I do not want to disturb the midfield."
Wirtz is still waiting for his first goal for the Reds, having scored 34 across his last two seasons at Leverkusen, and he has three assists in 15 games so far.
Slot's starting XI is unchanged from the one that beat Real Madrid 1-0 on Tuesday night.
Arne Slot has dismissed Arsene Wenger's claim that he 'destroyed' Liverpool's midfield to incorporate Wirtz
Wenger alleged that Wirtz had been told he could play as a No 10 and that was the reason he chose to move to Liverpool
As for Manchester City, Pep Guardiola makes three changes from the team that beat Borussia Dortmund 4-1 on Wednesday.
Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva, and Rayan Cherki come in while John Stones, Tijjani Reijnders, Savinho drop to the bench.
Bernardo Silva starts to become the third-most capped City player in the Premier League with 277 outings, moving clear of Ederson, who has 276.
And Jeremy Doku reaches the landmark of 100 matches for the Sky Blues.
