{"id":24790,"date":"2026-08-23T22:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=24790"},"modified":"2026-08-23T22:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:57:27","slug":"new-manager-same-old-liverpool-florian-wirtz-and-alexander-isaks-dreadful-displays-in-lucky-draw-at-newcastle-suggest-andoni-iraola-might-have-even-more-problems-than-arne-slot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=24790","title":{"rendered":"New manager, same old Liverpool: Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak&#8217;s dreadful displays in lucky draw at Newcastle suggest Andoni Iraola might have even more problems than Arne Slot!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div aria-label=\"main body\">\n<div>\n<p><span>Iraola responded to Liverpool falling behind for the second time by making a double substitution by bringing on Alexis Mac Allister and summer signing Victor Munoz for Wirtz and Ngumoha, respectively. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The encouragingly direct Munoz won the penalty from which Szoboszlai earned Liverpool a draw but it was impossible not to feel sorry for Ngumoha, who was given the thankless task of replacing Mohamed Salah on the right wing, even though he prefers playing on the left. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>However, there will have been very little sympathy for Wirtz among Liverpool fans, who have been incredibly patient with the Germany international. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Writing in his column in the<\/span><i><em> Daily Telegraph<\/em><\/i><span> ahead of the opening weekend of the new Premier League season, former Red Jamie Carragher had challenged the \u00a3100 million man to prove he&#8217;s more than just &#8220;neat and tidy&#8221; on the ball &#8211; but Wirtz failed miserably to do so against Newcastle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>He may have registered one of Liverpool&#8217;s few shorts on target in the first half but it&#8217;s becoming increasingly difficult to work out where he fits into the starting line-up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Wirtz has often looked lost on the left wing and yet, in his supposedly best position, he was once again unable to impose himself on the kind of game that he was meant to light up when he arrived at Anfield last summer to great fanfare. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iraola responded to Liverpool falling behind for the second time by making a double substitution&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}