Defends DFB colleagues
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In the summer, Nick Woltemade (23) and Florian Wirtz (22) left the Bundesliga for high transfer fees for the Premier League. While Woltemade was able to play his way straight into the hearts of Newcastle United fans, Wirtz has to face regular criticism. The former Stuttgart player defends the Liverpool FC midfielder and compares the beginnings of the two.
“On paper you may not see the goals, but if you compare my games with his, he is much more in the game. I probably stand correctly three or four times, get the ball and shoot it in – he, on the other hand, is very active in the game, has a lot of ball contact and good actions,” said Woltemade, who scored six goals in 14 appearances, to the TV station “RTL”. “It’s not an easy transition for any player, but he’s doing a very good job.”
The criticism of Wirtz is loud, among other things, because he was only able to score three goals in 16 games and was not yet successful himself. In his eleven appearances in the Premier League, he remained completely scoreless. National coach Julian Nagelsmann defended Wirtz at the press conference on Monday: “Maybe someone should just shoot the things he presents. That would also be an idea. Because he doesn’t do very little in front of the goal. They just somehow like not to shoot the things in there. That’s also part of the truth.”
While Wirtz after his transfer from Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool FC, which cost at least 125 million euros the most expensive German professional in history advanced, Woltemade ended up in third place. Newcastle United paid 75 million euros excluding bonuses to VfB Stuttgart at the end of the transfer period after the Bremen native had been courted by FC Bayern for a long time. The market value update in October went in different directions. Wirtz recorded the first loss in his career and fell from 140 million to 130 million euros. For Woltemade it went up by 35 million to 65 million euros. This makes both of them count most valuable German footballers – only Bayern’s Jamal Musiala has a higher market value.