Slot: Players like Wirtz need time to adapt to Premier League intensity

Liverpool boss Arne Slot believes players such as Florian Wirtz, who join the Premier League from abroad, need time to adapt to the intensity of the style of football.

Wirtz endured a slow start to life on Merseyside, but has started to find his feet in the Liverpool team in recent weeks.

Having failed to score or assist a goal in any of his first 15 Premier League appearances, Wirtz has now scored (one) or assisted (one) in his last two.

He last registered a goal involvement in more consecutive league games in November-December last year (a run of six with Bayer Leverkusen).

Slot insisted that new players to the league must be given time to adjust to their new surroundings, with Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike still getting used to the intensity levels.

“He’s the only one who could answer that question, I can only answer from my experience being an old man, or at least much older than him,” said Slot when asked if Wirtz has had enough time to adapt to English football.

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“The first few months in a different country – because it was also my first experience going abroad – it’s different.

“Your life is a bit upside down, and that, for a manager, is probably not the biggest problem, because I don’t have to perform on the pitch, but I could fully understand that some individuals and some players need a bit of time to adapt off the pitch as well.

“But the biggest adaptation if you come from abroad is this league and how intense it is.

“Again [against Wolves] I think even when we play once a week, you could see that Hugo had cramp after 70 or 75 minutes.

“And I didn’t take Florian out because he played bad, I took him out because he was hardly able to keep on running any more.

“That has also been the situation with him, but also that tells you about the new players that we’ve brought in and how big of a step it is to adjust to these intensity levels.”

Liverpool are eyeing a fourth straight win when they play at home to Leeds on Thursday.