9 duels won: Neil Mellor says ‘very impressive’ Liverpool beast was ‘a joy to watch’ on Saturday

Neil Mellor proclaimed that one Liverpool player was ‘a joy to watch’ in the Reds’ 2-0 victory against Brighton on Saturday.

Twenty-one matches into his LFC career, the wait for a first goal for the club goes on for Florian Wirtz, but anyone who actually watches the Premier League champions frequently would recognise just how good the German playmaker has been.

The 22-year-old was involved in one of the big talking points from the match when he was booted in the chest by Diego Gomez just before half-time, with former top-flight official Dermot Gallagher justifiably arguing that the Paraguayan was quite fortunate to only receive a yellow card for that challenge.

Mellor: Wirtz was ‘a joy to watch’ against Brighton

Taking to X on Monday evening as he reflected on Liverpool’s win, Mellor singled out the Reds’ number 7 for praise, noting how he contributed towards the awarding of the corner kick from which Hugo Ekitike doubled our lead on the hour mark.

The ex-LFC striker posted: ‘Florian Wirtz was very impressive against Brighton. A joy to watch! Loved to see him win the ball back by being too strong for the Brighton centre-back, which led to the corner Liverpool scored 2nd from.’

Wirtz getting accustomed to physicality of the Premier League

Once again there were some baity social media posts doing the rounds over the weekend citing Wirtz’s wait for a first Liverpool goal, in a pathetic attempt to gaslight people into thinking that the 22-year-old has been an expensive flop.

Admittedly we’d have expected that duck to have been broken by now when the German completed his move from Bayer Leverkusen six months ago, but the eye test would tell you that he’s having a substantial influence on games without getting his name on the scoresheet.

The Liverpool Echo‘s Theo Squires handed him 8/10 in his post-match player ratings, writing that our number 7 ‘certainly enjoyed himself’ on Saturday and ‘had great joy skipping through the Brighton defence’, and citing chances that he created for Ekitike and Mo Salah.

As per Sofascore, Wirtz won four tackles, completed 86% of his passes and two of his three dribbles, made three key passes and drew two fouls. Most notably of all, he won nine of his 12 duels, which suggests that perhaps he’s starting to get accustomed to the physicality of the Premier League.

That, and the pre-corner kick incident cited by Mellor, indicate that the 22-year-old – who James Pearce dubbed a ‘special player‘ – is very much getting to grips with the physical rigour of the English top flight.

That’s been one constructive criticism levelled frequently at the Germany international throughout his time at Anfield, but if he can adjust to that aspect of the game, the sky appears to be the limit for him.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Brighton press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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