Andy Robertson lifts lid on Liverpool dressing room view of Florian Wirtz - 'It's unfair'
- mrwedwards
- 40 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Cody Gakpo applied the finishing touch to banish any doubt Liverpool would emerge from Germany with much-needed victory.
But rather than engulf the goalscorer, many of his team-mates instead made a beeline for the man who had laid on the opportunity.
Small wonder. For the first time in more than two months, the hard work of Florian Wirtz had been rewarded with an assist.
Like buses, another came along shortly afterwards, although it was Dominik Szoboszlai who did most of the hard work by thumping home a simple pass from 20 yards to cap a 5-1 Champions League victory at Eintracht Frankfurt.
After such a barren run, though, Wirtz was just grateful of the contribution to quieten some of the criticism that has come his way since arriving for £116million from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer.
Andy Robertson
“I thought he was outstanding, excellent,"
"I thought he grew and grew into the game, especially the second half.
"Players around him helped him a lot – Curtis Jones was outstanding – and I thought the three midfielders helped us gain the momentum and keep the ball.
“Flo has been really good since he came here. People focus on numbers of goals and assists but at times it's unfair as he's created a hell of a lot of chances and on Wednesday some of the chances he created ended up as an assist. Hopefully he can take a lot from this performance."
Robertson is not wrong to point out the number of openings fashioned by Wirtz that have been spurned by Liverpool.
No Premier League player has created more chances in all competitions this season, with the Germany international also leading the way for open-play chances and expected assists.
He is also top in terms of chances created per 90 minutes for those players with at least 200 minutes this season.
Robertson, making only his third start of the campaign ahead of Milos Kerkez, now has a goal and assist in the Champions League having released Hugo Ekitike to equalise against his former club and steady Liverpool nerves after going behind to Rasmus Kristensen's strike for Frankfurt.
Headed goals from corners by centre-back duo Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate turned the game irreversibly towards the visitors before half-time, with Frankfurt boss Dino Toppmoller later admitting his team couldn't cope with Liverpool at set-pieces - an area of the game Reds boss Arne Slot has urged his team to improve.
“We work on it all the time, every team does now," said Robertson. "You've seen it is a huge part of the game.
“We've conceded a few set-pieces and that has been hugely disappointing and we have to get better at that and we've probably not scored as many as we should with the deliveries we've had.
"Thankfully it paid off, the deliveries were spot-on, the blocks were spot on and the runners were spot-on and when you get the three things right you give yourself a hell of a chance to score and the two big lads put us 3-1 up at a crucial time."
Victory in Germany for a reshuffled Reds ended a run of four successive defeats that had prompted skipper Virgil van Dijk to call an unplanned meeting with the squad on Monday aimed at addressing matters.
Robertson
“The message from the leaders in the group after Manchester United was 'don't panic',"
"It was more 'keep doing what you're doing, keep focusing, and as long as we stick together as a group everything will turn'.
“If you look to your left and right the quality we have in our squad is unbelievable and if we show that on a day-to-day basis then we will be successful.
“We always talk in the changing room – even when we were winning five games in a row we talk. So that's normal after games, whether we do it in small groups or big groups.
“When we go 3-1 up (in Frankfurt) you see lads starting to enjoy themselves and that's what you want, people playing with a smile on their face and people enjoying playing for this club, people scoring goals, people assisting goals.
"Winning 5-1 in the Champions League is quite rare, it doesn't happen very often, and you have to enjoy nights like this and hopefully a lot of lads take a lot from it.
“But it's only one win and we have a lot of work to do - we need to put a winning streak together rather than a losing streak."
Indeed, Liverpool will now aim to halt a run of three consecutive Premier League losses and breathe new life into their title challenge when they visit Brentford on Saturday.
But Reds vice-captain Robertson hasn't been tempted to get in contact with former captain Jordan Henderson ahead of the reunion.
“I think if I even tried I don't think he would text me so I'll save that for after the game,"
"Hendo is an absolute legend of our club, what he has done for us within our changing room and the trophies he lifted.
"It will be nice to see him but I know he will be up for the fight like he always is and our midfield will have a hell of a battle against him, like all our players will because Brentford are a tough team.
“Hopefully if we get the win I can have a nice catch-up with him after the game."
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