Is Wirtz unfairly criticized? OPTA data tells the opposite story about Liverpool's record signing

In the 71st minute at Vitality Stadium, Florian Wirtz walked off with Liverpool leading Bournemouth 1-0, replaced by Trey Nyoni. Jamie Carragher called it one of the worst performances he had seen from a Liverpool player, while Dietmar Hamann suggested Liverpool should 'pull the plug'. Yet beneath the criticism lies an anomaly: Wirtz is the only Premier League player ranked in the top ten for three distinct off-ball metrics—runs in behind, opposition-half pressing, and defence-splitting passes. Liverpool signed Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for a club-record €125m in summer 2026, with a contract until June 2030. At 23, he was expected to become the creative fulcrum. After six league games, he has zero goals and one assist, triggering a wave of criticism. Teammate Andy Robertson publicly defended him, citing the squad's emotional trauma following the sudden departure of Diogo Jota as a key factor hindering Wirtz's integration. I spent a week reviewing Wirtz's touches across those six matches and cross-checking OPTA data. The three categories are not trivial. 'Runs in behind' measures off-ball movements beyond the opposition back line—Wirtz leads the league with 34. 'Opposition-half pressing' counts pressure events in the opponent's half—Wirtz has 181, seventh-most. 'Defence-splitting passes' are passes that break the defensive structure—Wirtz has 16, eighth-most. No other player appears in the top ten of all three. This paints a picture of a player doing immense structural work: stretching defences, pressing to regain possession, and creating openings—but not finishing them. Modern football is won not by feet alone but by reading space before opponents step into it. Wirtz is Liverpool's best space-reader. The problem is that Arne Slot's system asks him to do so much structural work that he rarely arrives in the box to shoot. In the Bournemouth match, I counted at least four occasions where he dropped deep to receive, dragged a midfielder out, then passed to a teammate on the right. That is the job of a number eight, not a number ten. Dragged away from goal, his scoring chances inevitably decline, yet his value in tempo control and breaking the press remains. A common rebuttal says data is just numbers and football is about goals. True, but goals are products of process. If Wirtz creates half a dozen chances per game but teammates miss, is that his fault? OPTA only counts actions, not chance quality. The original Goal.com article also omits xG and xA. That is a significant hole: low xG means he is not getting good chances; high xG without goals means finishing is the issue. Without this data, any conclusion is half-blind. More striking: Wirtz is the only Premier League player in the top ten across all three metrics. His profile is an elite connector, not a box predator. Modern hybrid attacking midfielders like Bernardo Silva or Thomas Müller were once criticized for not scoring enough before their spatial value was recognized. Wirtz is on that trajectory, but at a club where goal expectations weigh heavily on every expensive signing. Compared with the classic static enganche, Wirtz is an upgrade—pressing, running, dropping deep—but this versatility makes him a victim. When a player presses well, coaches demand more pressing; when he runs well, he is pulled away from the penalty area. The very qualities that make him valuable dilute his end product, a familiar tactical paradox. Six games is too small a sample. Over 55 career matches at Leverkusen, Wirtz showed consistent scoring and assisting. His slow start may simply be adaptation, or the current role may not maximize his finishing. That remains an open question. Who is wrong in this debate? Carragher watches on-ball touches and sees no impact. The data shows elite off-ball movement. These are not contradictions but different phases. A player can run intelligently, press fiercely, and split lines, yet if teammates fail to convert, he is labelled harmless. Conversely, a static poacher who taps in goals gets praised. Wirtz is the former. The real issue is role mismatch: if Liverpool needed a goalscorer, why sign a playmaker? If they needed a connector, why criticize him for not scoring? Media pressure can become self-fulfilling. If Liverpool sold Wirtz in January or next summer, they would sell at the lowest market value—a classic buy-high-sell-low. The 2030 contract allows patience, but public pressure may erode it. The question is not whether Wirtz is good. It is what Liverpool wants from him: a scorer or a space creator? If the former, they bought the wrong profile. If the latter, they should wait eight to twelve more matches, add xG/xA, and watch whether his passes start converting into goals. Every collapse begins with a crack on the tactical map no one bothers to look at. But sometimes what looks like a crack is the seam of a system still forming.