5 hours ago
13
Arne Slot has dismissed Arsene Wenger's claim that he 'destroyed' Liverpool's midfield to incorporate Florian Writz as he predicted the German's influence is ready to grow.
Wenger, the former Arsenal manager, has become strident with some of his observations now that he is an analyst for BeIN Sport but his remarks about Wirtz, who joined Liverpool for £116million this summer, raised eyebrows on Merseyside.
He even alleged that Wirtz had been told he could play as a No 10 and that was the reason he chose to move to Liverpool rather than Sunday's opponents, Manchester City, or Bayern Munich, who were desperate to land the biggest star in the Bundesliga.
Slot is usually measured when he dealing with questions based around comments from pundits but it was clear to see that there was a level of irritation about the scrutiny on Wirtz, who arguably had his best game for Liverpool in Tuesday's 1-0 win over Real Madrid.
'Everyone has a right to his own opinion and many of them have,' said Slot, who welcomed Alexander Isak back to full training on Friday. '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.'
Arne Slot has dismissed Arsene Wenger 's claim that he 'destroyed' Liverpool 's midfield to incorporate Florian Writ
Arsene alleged that Wirtz had been told he could play as a No 10 and that was the reason he chose to move to Liverpool
There is no doubt at Kirby that Wirtz will blossom despite his slow start, with his displays in training are understood to be breathtaking
The best analogy to make about Wirtz, domestically, is that he has looked at times like a man trying to cross the motorway in rush hour but there is no doubt with the building at Kirkby that he will blossom – his performances in training are understood to be breathtaking.
It will be interesting to see if Slot deploys him from the left against City, as was the case against Madrid, because the structure of Liverpool's team looks sound again and using Wirtz centrally, in the No 10 role, hadn't been working.
'I think we have five or six very good midfielders who can all play together but they need to play more together to get the best out of every single player,' said Slot. 'Florian, he needs time to adapt to his teammates, team-mates need time to adapt to him.
'But he now played off the left. But I can tell you if it is not this season it is the other season or if it is not now it is tomorrow, he will have great performances as a midfielder for Liverpool as well. There has been a lot of focus on him individually and I'm more focused on team performance.'
