Paul Merson says Arne Slot needs to drop Florian Wirtz immediately

Arne Slot might have a critical choice dilemma on his fingers forward of Liverpool’s journey to Turf Moor on Sunday.

The Merseysiders will likely be resulting from tackle Scott Parker’s promoted Burnley facet, and Paul Merson believes the Dutch head coach may do with dropping Florian Wirtz from his midfield.

Liverpool have made an ideal begin to their Premier League title defence within the 2025/26 season, with three out of three wins secured.

Is it time to drop Florian Wirtz?

It appears a little bit of a nutty suggestion to bench our file midfield signing.

To be honest, Wirtz hasn’t had an ideal begin to life at Anfield, however there was at all times going to be an acclimatisation interval of kinds, even coming from a stylistically related league just like the Bundesliga.

Nonetheless, Paul Merson seems to have u-turned on his personal suggestion and known as for Slot to play a midfield three of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai.

“He spent huge on Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, so these two should undoubtedly begin?” the Sky Sports activities pundit wrote in his Sportskeeda column.

“However who do they take out of this staff? The place do you play Dominik Szoboszlai? He’s been terrific however you certainly can’t hold enjoying him at right-back? The midfield trio of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Szoboszlai performed an enormous function in Liverpool’s success final season. So I believe Slot has a giant headache by way of staff choice now.

“Wirtz is a prime participant. However there isn’t any want to vary one thing which isn’t damaged! The Liverpool midfield seems to be a bit weak now and in the event that they get overrun in that a part of the pitch, it’s an enormous drawback.

“If I needed to decide Liverpool’s greatest front-three proper now, I might go along with Mohamed Salah, Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo. If I needed to do the identical with their midfield, I might put Szoboszlai in there as a substitute of Wirtz.”

What staff ought to Liverpool put out towards Burnley?

In our view, Florian Wirtz ought to nonetheless make the first-XI come Sunday’s Premier League away journey.

We’re nonetheless of the thoughts that it might be very best to extend the Dominik Szoboszlai experiment at right-back, given Conor Bradley has solely lately returned to the pitch.

Likewise, Jeremie Frimpong seems to be like he may be known as upon for some minutes this weekend. So, we’re pleased not fixing one thing that isn’t damaged at this current stage!

Paul Merson is incorrect: Liverpool shouldn’t drop Wirtz

The notion of forcing Wirtz out large is, with the best of respect to Merson, laughable.

There’s not an opportunity in hell the German worldwide would have agreed to make the swap to Liverpool had we supplied him Luis Diaz’s place within the facet.

The important thing providing that clinched the deal forward of Bayern Munich was the truth that the previous Bayer Leverkusen man can be the central cog within the Liverpool machine.

And why shouldn’t he be? Relating to artistic involvement, there are few in world soccer who exceed Florian Wirtz.

Shot-creating actions
Progressive passes
Profitable take-ons

5.24 per 90 (91st percentile)
6.46 per 90 (93rd percentile)
2.86 per 90 (96th percentile)

* Florian Wirtz stats during the last 12 months, courtesy of FBref

Put merely, the 22-year-old makes issues occur when he’s on the pitch. As soon as he begins actually hitting his stride in England, it’ll be troublesome to conceive of a time when he wasn’t one of many first names on the teamsheet.

We’ll discover a technique to hold the stability proper, and within the meantime, it’s completely wholesome to have some choice dilemmas going into every gameweek!

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