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News
- 29 minutes ago
Liverpool NEED Florian Wirtz to do something only ONE player has done since 2000
Robin Bairner
- Updated: 4 Oct 2025 10:48 BST
- 4 min read
News
When Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz for €125 million from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer, it would have been interesting to know what Arne Slot and sporting director Richard Hughes expected of him over the course of his career at Anfield.
The Reds may be a little uneasy that Wirtz is threatened to be labelled with the infamous ‘007’ tag, but that in itself will not be a problem for the Premier League champions if – as expected – the Germany international ultimately comes good.
But what would constitute a success for Wirtz?
Current ETV
Florian Wirtz
AM, M (C)
Liverpool
Florian Wirtz
AM, M (C)
Liverpool
ETV Range
€102.8M - €171.3M
Given that Liverpool broke the British transfer record to sign him, it seems reasonable to suggest that at least 100 Premier League goal contributions over the course of his five-year contract would be a decent benchmark.
Salah, after all, got 47 last term in what will, admittedly, go down as perhaps the greatest individual campaign of all time. Luis Diaz, meanwhile, got 18.
While no one would have expected Wirtz to start quite so slowly, his impact was never likely to be immediate.
But the scale of the task facing him to hit Liverpool’s expectations and to justify his price tag is huge.
Wirtz seeking to follow in Sterling’s footsteps
Only one Premier League player since 2000 has gone ‘007’ for their new club, then gone on to break 100 goal contributions for that team: Raheem Sterling when he moved to Manchester City.
Indeed, lower the bar to just 50 goal contributions and there are still only three players who have achieved this over the course of the last 25 years, with Diogo Jota and Joshua King added to Sterling, a study from The Athletic shows.
There have only been 16 players in Premier League history (since 1992/93) to bounce back with even 30 total goal contributions.
The scale of Wirtz’s task, then, is considerable.
No one doubts that the Liverpool playmaker has the quality to come back from this disappointing beginning, but he will have to break into a very select group of players to achieve it.
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