As Florian Wirtz walks through a squall - not a storm - he can take comfort from the temporary travails of a past Liverpool No 7. It’s impossible to watch Wirtz’s struggle to impose his wonderful skills and not scroll back to the first half of Peter Beardsley’s debut season for Liverpool, 1987/88. That was truly a season of two halves for Beardsley.
I was only into my second year in Fleet Street, far from the glamour games, but still very aware of the narrative around Beardsley. Looking back, the Beardsley story provides some perspective on the current slightly panic-stained debate around Wirtz. Beardsley was a £1.9m British transfer record when he signed for Liverpool in July 1987. Like Wirtz now, Beardsley was part of an expensive overhaul of the squad, especially with attacking players. John Barnes and John Aldridge hit the ground running, and scoring. Beardsley took longer.
He endured a rough debut at Highbury when Tony Adams was far too strong for him. Liverpool’s manager, Kenny Dalglish, realised that Beardsley was not always at his best against more physical opponents who crowd him out, something that Wirtz discovers currently. Beardsley had played so beautifully at Newcastle that Dalglish’s desire to bring him to Liverpool was totally understandable. He offered some invention, a link between midfield and attack, a conduit towards Aldridge, just as Arne Slot seeks with Wirtz providing service between the lines towards Hugo Ekitike or Alexander Isak.
Amidst all the critiques of Wirtz’s undeniably below-par performance in last night’s 1-0 loss to Galatasaray, it is worth remembering some of the German’s passes, to Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong and Isak. Wirtz is certainly not hiding. He keeps getting on the ball, albeit too often crowded out. It’s also worth remembering he’s still only 22 and was good enough at Bayer Leverkusen to finish between Virgil van Dijk and Michael Olise at 29th in last week’s Ballon d’Or and 12th in last year’s.
Liverpool will have done extensive due diligence into Wirtz’s character, as well as his numbers and suitability for the next phase of Slot’s development of the team. The size of the fee, £116m, may be weighing Wirtz down - only he knows for sure - but he can take heart from the experience of Beardsley.
Beardsley still contributed in his difficult early months, scoring against Coventry, Derby, Portsmouth and Everton. “At the beginning he never caught the people’s imagination as much as Barnes did,” Dalglish wrote in his first autobiography. “He still made a contribution but, unlike John and Aldo, Peter took a bit of time to settle. That was no problem. While Peter was settling in there were so many other people Liverpool could turn to for something special – Barnes, Aldridge, (Ronnie) Whelan and Steve McMahon.”