Arne Slot has rubbished Arsene Wenger’s claim that the £116million signing of Florian Wirtz has ‘destroyed’ his Liverpool team.
As part of a massive summer spending spree, Slot broke the British transfer record to sign Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen – a record since surpassed by Alexander Isak’s £125m move to Anfield.
However, few of Liverpool’s summer arrivals are performing well, with attacking midfielder Wirtz coming under intense scrutiny having recorded no goals and just three assists in his first 15 appearances.
Moreover, it seems Slot does not fully trust the German international, starting him in just two of the last six Premier League games and reverting back to his tried and trusted midfield three.
Recently, Wenger slammed the signing, with the Reds losing six of seven games before last week’s wins over Aston Villa – where Wirtz was benched – and Real Madrid – where he started on the left-wing.
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‘They start him, they destroyed their midfield because their midfield was [Ryan] Gravenberch, [Alexis] Mac Allister and [Dominik] Szoboszlai, to play Wirtz they took Szoboszlai out,’ the legendary Arsenal manager said.
‘What have they done against Aston Villa? They came back to their normal midfield of last year.
‘[Against Real Madrid] they play Wirtz but Wirtz will play on the side because the manager has said, “if you want to play again you have to play wide because I do not want to disturb the midfield”.
Wirtz did perform better when operating on the flank against Real but Slot insists his signing can deliver in the No.10 role and suggested he had no interest in listening to Wenger’s criticism.
‘Everyone has a right to his own opinion and many of them have,’ the manager said in his press conference ahead of Liverpool’s huge clash against Manchester City on Sunday.
‘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 is also the nice thing about football because everyone knows it so we can talk about it.
‘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.
‘Florian, he needs time to adapt to his teammates, teammates 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.’
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