Arne Slot had decided to drop Florian Wirtz for the Merseyside derby even before he produced his finest performance to date as a £100m signing, in the win over Atletico Madrid. Or that was the implication, anyway. Slot suggested after beating Everton that he had identified the local affair as the most intense game of the week, prioritised it and worked backwards in his selection.
And so, for the first time, Wirtz was a substitute for Liverpool. Which, at some stage, was going to happen. Slot realises he has to rotate more this season. Before long, there will be few ever-present starters in the big matches. So the significance may have lain with who played instead. Slot reverted to the familiar, to his old firm, of Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai. In the process, he underlined the dilemma Wirtz’s arrival has posed. The German is the disruptor to a title-winning trio. He and Liverpool have to adapt to each other and, against Atletico, there were encouraging signs.
