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Champions League Drama LIVE 2m ago Wirtz rounds Arda Guler on a night when the Liverpool player moved left and showed his class Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images Hood up over his head, hands in his pockets, socks rolled down, Florian Wirtz looked exhausted as he trudged back onto the pitch at the final whistle. He has often seemed that way in his first few months at Liverpool, but this time it was different. This time, he appeared content. This was one of those Anfield nights they had told him all about. Liverpool had beaten the mighty Real Madrid in a seething, raucous atmosphere that demanded football played with a real fervour. It was an occasion that called for perspiration as well as inspiration — and Wirtz, with a point to prove on his return to the starting line-up, certainly answered that call. Advertisement Seven weeks had passed since he had last started a game here. In that time, excitement over his projected £116million ($151m at the current rate) summer transfer from Bayer Leverkusen of Germany had given way to the type of scrutiny that was only increased by the sight of Wirtz watching games from the bench. Was this a flight of fancy from Liverpool? What if, for all his obvious creative gifts, they were simply a more balanced team without him? Liverpool coach Arne Slot issued a robust defence of the 22-year-old Germany international on the eve of this game, but so did his opposite number Xabi Alonso, who was his coach at Leverkusen for almost three years until the end of last season. “I have no doubts. It’s just a matter of time, ” the Madrid coach said at the pre-match news conference on Monday. “He needs to adapt, but he’s a really special player. Hopefully not (against Madrid), but I hope soon he’ll show his quality and class. ” There have been flashes of that quality in his first few months at Liverpool — a strong second-half performance in an Anfield victory over Arsenal, an outrageous flicked pass for Salah as a half-time substitute at Chelsea, a couple of assists in the 5-1 victory away to Eintracht Frankfurt, a lively cameo off the bench at home against Manchester United — but not enough to keep him in the starting line-up at a time when Slot was concerned his defending Premier League champions had been unbalanced by so many new arrivals. In that context, his performance against Madrid was by far Wirtz’s most impressive for the Dutchman to date. A few first-half highlights: chasing the ball towards the corner flag to dispossess Dean Huijsen on 10 minutes to combine with Dominik Szoboszlai and set up Alexis Mac Allister; a lovely touch to release Hugo Ekitike on the counter-attack on 17 minutes; more excellent work on 26 minutes to dispossess Eduardo Camavinga and tee up Mac Allister, only for the referee to get in the way; a perfect cutback to set up Szoboszlai after charging down the right wing on 27 minutes, only for goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to make an outstanding save; a delightful exchange of passes with Ekitike on 36 minutes in a congested area just outside the Madrid penalty area. Advertisement It might not sound like much, but it was all clever stuff performed perfectly with speed and vigour — allegro con brio.  In a first half of reassuringly high technical quality, played at a swift tempo, Wirtz carried more creative threat than anyone. And significantly, he did so from a starting position on the left-hand side, rather than in the central No 10 role he hoped for — and was given — when he first arrived in June. That alarming recent run of four consecutive Premier League defeats — six in seven matches in all competitions — for Liverpool raised so many questions about the balance of the team and about Wirtz’s role in particular. It would be premature to assume that everything has been fixed, but it feels instructive, at very least in the short term, that back-to-back wins over Aston Villa and Madrid in the space of four days have been achieved with Conor Bradley and Andy Robertson in the full-back roles, Mac Allister looking more refreshed alongside Ryan Gravenberch as the midfield axis and with Szoboszlai reprising last season’s No 10 role. It was also interesting to hear former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s observations on Wirtz in a pre-match interview on be IN Sports. His take was that Liverpool had managed to get Wirtz in the summer, ahead of staying in Germany with a move to serial champions Bayern Munich, by telling him they would play him centrally but, by doing so, they “destroyed their midfield”. And now, Wenger added, “the manager has said (to Wirtz), ‘If you want to play a game, you have to play wide because I don’t want to disturb the midfield’. ” It is a conundrum with which Wenger might identify. In 2013, he too signed a spectacularly gifted young German No 10, Mesut Ozil, and played him in that No 10 role for the best part of five seasons without ever quite finding a tactical framework that made Arsenal reliable when it came to off-the-ball stuff. Advertisement Wirtz is a different kind of player — less ethereal, perhaps — but there are certain parallels, and there are certain compromises that sometimes have to be made when accommodating such a rare talent. Even before the victories over Frankfurt, where he played in a loose right-side role, and Madrid, there has been a theory that Wirtz might be better suited to Champions League football than to the Premier League — particularly since he has come to England at a time when a number of its top-flight teams have moved towards a more attritional style. His performance on Tuesday will do nothing to dilute that theory, at least while he is still taking time to adapt to the physical demands of the domestic game. It is entirely possible Slot will take a different approach away to Manchester City back in the Premier League on Sunday, but last night’s left-sided role should be a serious option for Wirtz. As this dashboard of his performance against Madrid illustrates, he was not confined to that left wing and was prominently involved in attacking sequences, linking up well with Szoboszlai in particular. When asked about Wirtz’s performance — and specifically whether he felt that this type of game, against a more attack-oriented team, suited him — Slot again suggested the only real issue was one of adaptation.   “I’ve said it many times, and I can say it one more time, but (…) if you come from a different league and you have to play every few days and there are so many away games to be played against certain styles of play, you need to adapt to that, ” the coach said. “That goes for almost everyone, let alone for a player that’s 22. I think he’s working incredibly hard to adapt as soon as he can. And he has been so unlucky throughout his career here at Liverpool, because even today he created so many chances for the team. ” It is all fair comment. The strange thing is that Wirtz was starting game after game in the opening weeks of the season when there would, particularly with the benefit of hindsight, have been a strong case for integrating him more gradually. For him to start five of Liverpool’s first six Premier League games, but then only one of the subsequent four, suggests that the adaptation process has been less smooth than Slot anticipated. Similar applies to fellow newcomer Milos Kerkez at left-back. Advertisement There is nothing wrong with that. Football history is full of stories of players — particularly young players moving to a different country — who took time to adapt to flourish in a new environment. Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and particularly Dennis Bergkamp took time to feel at home at Arsenal; David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne, who did very little in two previous years with Chelsea, both struggled at times during their first seasons at Manchester City; Didier Drogba didn’t really get going at Chelsea until his third year; for a more laughable example, a few months into his Madrid career, the great Luka Modric was voted the worst La Liga signing of the 2012-13 season when he first joined Madrid. There is always a rush to judge players, particularly those signed for huge transfer fees. And some of them, hugely talented though they are, simply find they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. But a player of Wirtz’s age, obvious pedigree and excellent reputation comes with fewer concerns and — from the buying club’s perspective — fewer risks than most. The bigger question is whether, in what now seems like a period of stylistic flux in English football, he can be everything Liverpool want him to be in the Premier League while not leaving them light, in any way, when it comes to the defensive side of the game. In that context, the rigour and effectiveness of his work without the ball against Madrid was encouraging.  UEFA’s post-match statistics said he covered a distance of 11. 4km over the course of the game, which was more than 0. 8km further than any other player (next highest: Szoboszlai on 10. 6km) despite being substituted on 88 minutes. Distance covered can be a misleading or plain meaningless statistic, but in this case it certainly underlined the feeling that Wirtz had, as Szoboszlai told reporters afterwards, “just kept on running”. No wonder he looked exhausted. But as well as an ovation from the Anfield crowd and a high-five from Slot as he left the pitch, there was a warm embrace from Alonso at the final whistle. Then he was greeted on the touchline by Jeremie Frimpong, his former Leverkusen and now Liverpool team-mate, with a look and a smile that seemed to say this was the Wirtz he knew and loved. Wirtz just about found the energy to raise a smile. It had been a good night. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Before joining The Athletic as a senior writer in 2019, Oliver Kay spent 19 years working for The Times, the last ten of them as chief football correspondent. He is the author of the award-winning book Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty, Football’s Lost Genius. Follow Oliver on Twitter @Oliver Kay