One-time World Cup winner Jurgen Klinsmann has backed Liverpool playmaker Florian Wirtz to ‘get better’ over the next couple of years, following an unspectacular first season at Anfield.
The Germany international became the Reds’ first £100m signing when he joined from Bayer Leverkusen a year ago, arriving in England with huge potential and expectations to take the then-Premier League champions to an even higher level.
However, his debut campaign on Merseyside ended with just seven goals and 10 assists in 49 matches, a lower return than many would’ve expected from an attacking player of his talents, and he was subjected to stinging criticism from some pundits.
Klinsmann – who won the World Cup with what was then West Germany in 1990 – is confident that Wirtz will be so much richer for the experience of his first season in England and will go on to prove an unqualified success at Liverpool.
The 61-year-old said on ESPN FC: “I think it’s just a learning process that he’s going through. He’s still very young and he now has his first Premier League season under his belt. He knows there is still a lot of room for improvement, but he will only grow.
“He will only get better and I hope this World Cup gives him a huge boost in terms of confidence and growth, playing against the best in the world. I think there’s so much of an upside to Wirtz and he will prove that over the next couple of years to Liverpool fans.”
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Considering how much the Reds’ number 7 cost to sign, there was always going to be immense external pressure on him to play a starring role at Anfield straight away, even though he had no say in the transfer fee which was paid for him.
Klinsmann’s ESPN FC colleague Craig Burley also made the point that the 23-year-old wasn’t helped by the general malaise at Liverpool in the 2025/26 campaign, or by his continuous positional shuffling from Arne Slot, who regularly switched him from a central attacking role to a left-sided berth and back again.
Wirtz showed during a purple patch of form between Christmas and the end of January (when he scored six goals in 10 games) just how lethal he can be when he’s at his best, and the key for him next season will be to extrapolate that over nine months rather than condensing it into one.
It’s worth remembering that Kevin De Bruyne wasn’t an instant success in England, but in time his ability came to the fore under a manager who knew how to get the best out of him, and he duly went on to become of the Premier League’s greatest playmakers.
Wirtz has the raw talent to do likewise, and hopefully we’ll see a consistently effective and exciting version of him under Andoni Iraola in the 2026/27 campaign.
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