Florian Wirtz is still waiting for his first goal in a Liverpool shirt and has endured criticism of his performances so far at Anfield, but Dimitar Berbatov has been able to resonate with his situation and has duly dispensed valuable words of advice to the 22-year-old.
Both players left Bayer Leverkusen for the Premier League, the former for Anfileld this year and the Bulgarian striker for Tottenham Hotspur in 2006, and the latter took time to adjust at both Spurs and Manchester United before starring for those two clubs.
The 44-year-old spoke with his former Old Trafford teammate Rio Ferdinand on the latter’s YouTube channel, and in empathising with Wirtz’s attempts to succeed at LFC, he recounted his internal struggle when he first came to England.
Berbatov’s words of advice for Wirtz
Berbatov recalled: “I was thinking, ‘Maybe I need to go back’. That negative thinking that people have most of the time is horrendous.
“I was motivating myself. At the same time, I tried to sabotage myself. You want to go to your safe place, your safe environment, but you need to have that motivation and that ambition in you as well to overcome the fear. My ambition was bigger than my fear.”
Berbatov is convinced that Wirtz will become an undisputed success at Liverpool, saying: “I love him. He’s a fantastic player. He will be unbelievable, trust me…
“I’m sure that everybody sees his quality, and they’ll give him that time that he needs to fit into the team. I guarantee you, he’s going to be a success.
“Give him time. I think he’s going to be unbelievable for Liverpool.”
Wirtz can take heart from Berbatov’s advice and backing
Wirtz would be wise to heed Berbatov’s words as he seeks to exert his influence on Arne Slot’s side – the Reds wouldn’t have paid £100m+ if they weren’t convinced of his outstanding quality, and the key to success for the German is to put in the work and never lose self-belief.
Of course he’ll be disappointed not to have scored in his first 13 appearances for LFC, but as he showed during the 5-1 thrashing of Eintracht Frankfurt last week, he’s capable of producing ‘top-class’ moments in games, in the words of Ally McCoist.
The 22-year-old will inevitably have bad days, too, such as the Brentford game on Saturday when he was surprisingly substituted for a defender in Joe Gomez with Liverpool 3-1 down in the final few minutes.
Wirtz is only a quarter of the way through his first season in England, so it’d be preposterous to write him off as a flop already. Yes, we’d like to have seen more from him by now in terms of goal contributions, but it’s not as though he hasn’t been trying to make an impact in the final third.
Go back through the years and you’ll find plenty of LFC greats who took a good few months to truly find their feet at Anfield – Andy Robertson and Bobby Firmino were slow burners at first but both were integral to our success under Jurgen Klopp. In 2005, Peter Crouch didn’t score his first goal until midway through his first campaign for us, and then hit a prolonged purple patch.
Our number 7 can take heart from Berbatov’s advice and backing, with the Bulgarian having been there and done it in the Premier League in his playing days.
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