Two legends, one struggling player, different prescriptions

Florian Wirtz has had a difficult start to life at Liverpool. That much everyone agrees on. One assist in his first six Premier League appearances, a substitution during the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City, and growing criticism from pundits who feel a player of his calibre and his £116 million price tag should be doing considerably more. What Liverpool's two most decorated former captains disagree on, though, is what should happen next.

Jamie Carragher has been consistent in his assessment. After questioning Wirtz following the win over Bournemouth, he doubled down in the aftermath of the City defeat, insisting that after 60 matches for the club, the German simply has to produce more. His argument is straightforward: you cannot keep excusing a player of that quality and cost on the basis that his position is not quite right. "We are definitely not judging him harshly," Carragher said, "but what I am going to say is... he has got to do an awful lot more."

Carragher also floated the idea that the summer presented a missed opportunity, suggesting in his own words that he had wondered whether Xabi Alonso might become Liverpool's manager precisely because nobody knows Wirtz better than the man who worked with him so closely. "Alonso could come in and unlock Wirtz, your big money signing," he said. Instead the club went a different way, and Carragher is clear-eyed about what that means: the current manager is, in his words, "a wingers man" who will never play Wirtz in the inside-left pocket that might suit him best.

Gerrard's plea: the kid needs help, not more criticism

Steven Gerrard's diagnosis is warmer, though not without teeth. Speaking on The Overlap, he acknowledged the problems plainly. "Wirtz's confidence is shot. He's not playing well enough. We need to see more from him," he said. On that, he and Carragher are in agreement. But Gerrard's remedy is different. Rather than calling for a positional reshuffle or sterner judgment, he is calling for the club and its senior players to wrap their arms around a young man he believes is beating himself up.

"I think he needs help from his manager, from his coaches. I think he needs help from his senior players," Gerrard said. His reading of Wirtz's struggles is rooted in a tactical observation too: he believes the 23-year-old is fundamentally a number ten, a player whose entire game at Bayer Leverkusen was built around creating and scoring from that central role. "I don't think he's got the speed to play out wide," he added. That is not a criticism so much as a structural point, and it cuts to the heart of whether this Liverpool side is actually set up to let Wirtz thrive.

Gerrard went further, drawing on his own experience of form dips at Liverpool. He suggested that, counterintuitively, a spell on the bench might be exactly what Wirtz needs right now. "When managers took me out and put me on the bench or left me out or gave me a rest, sometimes just watching the team and being gutted you've been taken out... that little bit of fear, maybe am I not the main player anymore, it could help Florian Wirtz," he said. It is the kind of insight that only comes from having lived it, and it gives the plea real weight.

What happens when the squad is finally fit

Gerrard also pointed to a broader context that the noise around Wirtz tends to ignore. Liverpool are in what he called "a little transition moment", with several attacking players yet to be fit and available. He named a number of forwards who, when firing, would give Wirtz the forward runs and movement around him that his game depends on. Until that support cast is in place, he argued, judging Wirtz too harshly is premature.

None of that lets Wirtz off the hook entirely, and Gerrard was at pains to make that clear. "He needs to step up a bit more. He needs to realise the situation he's in," he said. But the overriding message was one of belief in a player he is convinced has the talent to come good. The debate between two Anfield icons reflects the tension that surrounds Wirtz right now: the frustration is real, the potential is real, and Liverpool need both sides of that equation to resolve itself quickly. How long patience holds is the question nobody can yet answer.