Arne Slot had made a comparison with Harvey Elliott. He had already mentioned his biggest buy as a successor of sorts to Alisson and Virgil van Dijk. Then he reached for the ultimate, and not merely Mohamed Salah, by invoking Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. No pressure there, then.
Perhaps Florian Wirtz’s £100m price tag brought it anyway, even before his manager mentioned the two dominant players of their generation and one of the greatest in Liverpool’s history. And, as Wirtz prepares to make his Premier League debut, while Slot believes the German could take time to adjust to the particular tactical demands of his team, he does not feel youth or inexperience will would be mitigating factors.
