Arne Slot reveals Liverpool's plan to help boost Florian Wirtz's form after slow Liverpool start following £116m transfer

There was a huge amount of excitement when Wirtz joined Liverpool for a then-Premier League transfer record fee, something new team-mate Alexander Isak has since topped later for £125m ($169.3m). And the German international, who set his sights on winning the biggest trophies at Anfield, couldn't wait to get going, either.  

"I feel very happy and very proud. Finally, it’s done and I was waiting for a long time – finally it’s done and I am really happy," he said. "I'm really excited to have a new adventure in front of me. This was also a big point of my thoughts: that I want to have something completely new, to go out of the Bundesliga and to join the Premier League. I will see how I can perform there. I hope I can do my best. I spoke also with some players who played there and they told me that it’s perfect for me and every pitch is perfect, you can enjoy every game. I’m really looking forward to playing my first game. I would like to win everything every year! First of all, we have to do our work, I have to make my work. In the end, we want to be successful. Last season they won the Premier League so my goal is for sure to win it again and also to go further in the Champions League. I’m really ambitious."

But so far, he has not lived up to the hype with no goals and five assists in all competitions.

When Wirtz started out at Liverpool, he was often brushed off the ball as he struggled to adapt to the rigours of the Premier League. However, the Reds are now putting him on a weight-gain programme, and while it is early days, manager Slot is pleased with what he has seen so far. Although he is yet to open his goalscoring account and is a long way off his 31-goal contributions for Leverkusen last season, he has impressed in recent weeks.

Slot told the Liverpool Echo: "To come back to your question, I hope I made it clear that I am talking not just about the new players (who have needed to adapt) but players in general, Florian has improved a lot. I am not talking about his ability on the ball because we could see from the start that that was top. But I saw in one moment against Brighton where he took the ball off Dom (Szoboszlai), he dribbled and a player came to him and he pushed him away and kept on dribbling. Then he provided a cut back cross for Hugo [Ekitike] who shot over the bar. Later he won the duel with (Brighton's) Jan Paul van Hecke that led to the counter attack with the shot from Mo (Salah). 

"In those moments you see it gets easier for him. It takes a lot, a lot, a lot of effort for him to play in this intensity but he is getting used to it. That is my take. Both (fitness and weight work). A lot of them have grown in kilograms, in muscle. That’s one thing. And secondly, if you are only in the gym you cannot be prepared for 90 minutes of Premier League football. It is about playing those games, I would say training but we hardly ever do that, so it’s playing, playing, playing."

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Slot also made it clear that Liverpool are also trying to build up the minutes, along with improving the strength and conditioning, of team-mates Alexis Mac Allister, Conor Bradley, and Joe Gomez. 

The Dutchman added, "The only way to make these players better is by playing them. I have played players during the season when you would usually take pre-season for that. The only way to get Florian stronger, Macca (Alexis Mac Allister), Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez, is to play games. So yeah, it’s a combination of things but definitely also about the gym work where they all get stronger."

Liverpool, who are unbeaten in six games and sit seventh in the Premier League, take on Tottenham in north London on Saturday evening, before rounding off 2025 at home to bottom-of-the-table Wolves on December 27.