NICK FEINBERG: A REALITY CHECK FOR REDS’ WIRTZ

HELLO my good football people... I trust you’re doing well! It was a big weekend and the focus was on three tasty Premier League fixtures.

Kicking off with the Merseyside derby on Saturday, which we were all kind of expecting to see a proper competitive game given Liverpool’s winning but slightly shaky performances this season.

Across the way, it feels like Everton are finally on the way out of a long-term slump and on their way up. It turned out to be a really poor day for the Toffees, who lacked ideas, rhythm and energy. The Reds always looked on top and really could have scored three or four goals.

One of the key takeaways had to be the surprise benching of 116 million f*****g pound “wonderkid” Florian Wirtz.

Mate? Who is this boy? Who is his agent? I mean in all seriousness, he has risen through club and national ranks, playing for Germany at all levels and was a standout player for Bayer Leverkusen, but after starting six times out of Liverpool’s last six games he has failed to show anything.

I think I’ve spoken about the way I view/comment on young players who struggle these days. That’s after s******g myself every time my son puts on a Springbok jersey.

It’s horrible for friends and family, and of course the youngster when things aren’t working out. It’s a lot of pressure to deal with and that pressure consciously and subconsciously eats away inside and affects performance.

 It’s a wicked negative cycle. So as much as I might not like Liverpool, I wish the kid good luck. There have been many examples of players who go on to be great that looked like flops when they play for the first time in the Premier League. There must be a lot of chit-chat upstairs though, it’s a lot of money and coach Arne Slot made a point of explaining that Wirtz’s exclusion was about rotation, rather than him being dropped.

Later on in the day and just up the road, Chelsea went to Manchester United on a soaking wet pitch that basically ended for the Blues after five minutes with Robert Sanchez getting a red card (I still think Wesley Fofana gets to the ball as a covering defender, but so be it).

What was stand-out there, however, was Enzo Maresca’s unexplainable substitutions. A man down, five minutes in and he takes off both pacey wingers? What could the tactic possibly be? To sit deep and have no outlet up front when you’re chasing the game?

It became that much more glaring when Cole Palmer pulled his groin soon afterwards, leaving Joao Pedro running a couple of pointless marathons up front on his own. But of course Casemiro’s stupid sending off offered up the opportunity for Maresca to put bad decisions right and bring on Alejandro Garnacho to add some explosive work in the vacant wide channel. Obvious right? Well, apparently not…

Anyway, the other thing I’ve learned over the years, is we don’t know s**t. We have no idea what the real deeper thoughts are behind the scenes regarding team selection, players, training, tactics, politics, combinations etc.

We have to keep the faith. United took three points, that is what mattered at the end of the day.

Onto Sunday, and I was really looking forward to Manchester City’s visit to the Emirates. It was a top quality game. It was interesting to see Mikel Arteta deploy three defensive midfielders.

You’d imagine with the Gunners’ form, City’s lack of thereof and home advantage would have given the Spaniard all the confidence?

As it turned out Rodri ran the middle of the park single-handedly. I’m still not sure why Martin Odergaard started? Since his injury, he just hasn’t been the same.

I don’t think Arsenal have improved from last season despite the spending and that was summed up with another Noni Madueke sideshow. I was listening to the pundits in studio after the game, singing his praises. Joe Hart said, “Madueke looked electric” and fans are saying the same thing.

During the first half, he went on five runs down the right and took two corners. Not one of the seven crosses reached an Arsenal player.

Are people that shallow that they think a bit of dribbling and pace makes a great player? It means f**k all unless there is something on the end of it.

Chelsea had two frustrating years with him. He was exactly the same, great on the ball, useless decision-making. Good luck to him. Of course everyone can improve.

Game to look out for this weekend? I think Liverpool might struggle at Palace this Saturday.

Chat next week, bye bye.