When Andoni Iraola sent Rio Ngumoha onto the pitch against a ten-man Brentford, he was not following some grand tactical blueprint. He was improvising. What he stumbled upon, however, may quietly reshape how Liverpool approach the Florian Wirtz question for the rest of the season.

A record-breaking performance that still drew criticism

Wirtz created nine open-play chances at Brentford — the most by a single player in a Premier League game since January 2021. Liverpool won. And yet criticism still followed him off the pitch. That hysteria says as much about the weight of expectation on Wirtz as it does about his actual display.

Danny Murphy, speaking on BBC Match of the Day, argued that Liverpool's problems stem from playing Wirtz as a lone number ten with two wide forwards and only two midfielders behind him. His solution: drop a winger and add a third midfielder. The argument is reasonable — but it misses the point.

The Leverkusen blueprint

When Wirtz was at his most devastating — contributing 22 goals and assists in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 Bundesliga seasons — Bayer Leverkusen did not play him as an isolated ten. Under Xabi Alonso, Wirtz operated in a 3-4-3 system alongside a partner in the number ten role, initially Jonas Hoffman, and later others in similar pairings. The same principle now applies to Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer at Leverkusen.

Wirtz, in other words, has never truly excelled as a lone ten. Playing him that way at Liverpool is not a test of his ability — it is a misreading of his profile entirely.

How the second half changed everything

After Ngumoha came on, Liverpool shifted into an unusually lopsided 4-2-3-1 in which Ngumoha, nominally on the right, drifted infield to play as a second ten alongside Wirtz. The effect was immediate. Brentford's midfield could not account for two players operating in central pockets simultaneously.

The equaliser illustrated this perfectly. Wirtz received the ball and played a precise through-ball to assist Victor Munoz's goal — but only because Ngumoha's central positioning had drawn Mamadou Sangare away from his defensive station, creating the gap Wirtz needed. The winner followed through the same overload: two number tens pulling Brentford's shape apart, opening the crossing lane.

Liverpool were playing against ten men, and that caveat matters. Wirtz also lost possession 19 times and won just one of his nine individual duels. The limitations are real. But the underlying tactical logic is sound regardless of the opposition's numerical disadvantage.

A simple fix hiding in plain sight

The solution to Liverpool's Wirtz problem may not require a dramatic overhaul. It requires one small shift — pairing him with another number ten, just as Bayer Leverkusen always did. Iraola found it by accident on a Saturday afternoon in west London. Whether he builds on it intentionally is the more important question now.