Gary Neville's Warning to Liverpool's £200m Duo
Gary Neville has warned Liverpool’s £200m front pair Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak that the grace period is over – but insisted he still believes they will come good at Anfield.
The Sky Sports pundit, speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, branded the duo his “biggest disappointments” in Liverpool’s limp Premier League opener at St James’ Park, where Isak completed 90 anonymous minutes on his return to Newcastle and Wirtz was hooked just after the hour for Alexis Mac Allister.
Both had teased a revival in pre-season under new head coach Andoni Iraola, catching the eye in friendlies and hinting at a sharper, more ruthless Liverpool attack. When the real thing started on Sunday, that promise vanished.
“The big thing for Liverpool is they’ve got this quarter-of-a-billion-pound front two, Isak and Wirtz and bloody hell, we’ve been kind to them,” Neville said. “They’re going to have to start playing sooner or later or else, to be fair, they’re going to get quite a lot of criticism.
“For a start, they’re too nice, and if you’re going to be nice, you’d better be incredible at football.”
Neville’s rocket for Wirtz
Neville reserved some of his fiercest words for Wirtz, who has struggled to justify his nine-figure move from Bayer Leverkusen and has just eight league goal involvements since arriving on Merseyside.
“I don’t see the tenacity in Wirtz in particular,” he said. “I just see a nice player moving around the pitch, not really ever looking like he’s busting a gut to do anything.
“Now, that can happen. Sometimes players have that flow about them, but I want to put a rocket up him. I want to put a rocket up him because there’s ability there, there’s talent there, the understanding of his position.
“The biggest disappointment for me [Sunday] is those two.”
Wirtz had looked far more dangerous in pre-season as a shadow striker, especially in Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat to Monaco a fortnight before the league campaign kicked off. At St James’ Park he operated further away from Isak, and Neville believes that blunted both his threat and Liverpool’s.
“Sometimes I think he moves around too much,” Neville said. “Sometimes I don’t think he’s close enough to his striker, I don’t think he understands where the game’s going to be won and lost.
“When I played football and No 10s sometimes drifted too deep, or too wide, they would get a right rollicking off our manager.
“The game’s not going to be won out there, the game’s not going to be won back there, the game’s going to be won in the final third, in and around the box.”
Neville wants Wirtz thinking less like a playmaker in the build-up and more like a second striker.
“Combining with your striker, getting crosses in, getting little passes, getting little side passes down the side of the centre-backs, being close enough to your forward so that you can combine with him. And I don’t see him combining with Isak.
“I just feel like Wirtz has got to think about being involved in the build-up less and think about being a second striker. He’s got to think about his output and what he needs to do, and that is feed Isak with little passes down the side of centre-backs. He might only get the ball two or three times in that position in tight games where teams are lying deep.”
Faith in Isak – but time to show it
Isak, now the Premier League’s most expensive player after his move from Newcastle last summer, cut a frustrated figure against his old club. The Swede’s movement never really troubled his former team-mates, a stark contrast to the havoc he caused in black and white.
Neville, though, refused to write him off.
“I’ve watched them both for 12 months, and I do actually have faith in them,” he said. “I think Isak’s an exceptional player and we’ve seen it.
“I never saw anybody give Gabriel and Saliba or Van Dijk and Konate a tougher time as Isak did when he played at Newcastle in a black and white shirt. I’ve seen him be devastating.
“Now Liverpool fans and his team-mates and coaching staff, they need to see that – because that’s £125m they’ve spent on him.”
The numbers and the patience are starting to collide. Isak had injuries last season, Wirtz has had to adapt to a new league and a new country, and Liverpool have already changed head coach, with Arne Slot gone and Iraola now in charge. Neville accepts all of that – up to a point.
“And then Wirtz, he needs to sort himself out. Enough’s enough now, we’ve talked about him enough. He’s young and he’s come to a different country – and I’m all for willing him on.
“They have both had a bit of a free ride. Obviously Isak was injured last season but Arne Slot loses his job, and Wirtz has played like that, so let’s be clear, this has got me to start some real focus now.
“I can see a real player there, but can’t keep watching this stuff and he’s been subbed after an hour and they need a goal, but they’re 2-1 down, so no that’s not right.”
Liverpool have built around this expensive, elegant front two. Neville’s message cut through the noise: the kindness is over. The next few weeks will show whether Wirtz and Isak are the foundation of a new era at Anfield, or an expensive problem Iraola has to solve on the fly.
