Gary Neville has spent a year giving Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz the benefit of the doubt. After ninety minutes at St James' Park on Sunday, he's done.
"The big thing for Liverpool is they've got this quarter-of-a-billion-pound front two, Isak and Wirtz, and bloody hell, we've been kind to them," Neville said on his podcast. "They're going to have to start playing sooner or later or else, to be fair, they're going to get quite a lot of criticism. For a start, they're too nice, and if you're going to be nice, you'd better be incredible at football."
A year of goodwill runs out
The context matters. Isak missed most of last season injured. Wirtz arrived from Bayer Leverkusen with a nine-figure fee attached and a manager, Arne Slot, who lost his job partly because the team around those signings never clicked. Both looked sharp in pre-season under Andoni Iraola. Neither carried any of it into the opening weekend.
Isak lasted the full match and was booed on every touch by the crowd that used to sing his name. Wirtz came off just after the hour with Liverpool trailing, replaced by Alexis Mac Allister. That substitution, more than anything, is what set Neville off.
"I can see a real player there, but I can't keep watching this stuff and he's been subbed after an hour and they need a goal, but they're 2-1 down, so no, that's not right."
The Wirtz problem is positional, not personal
Neville's specific complaint about Wirtz is that the 23-year-old keeps drifting into places where games aren't decided. In pre-season, including the 3-2 defeat to Monaco a fortnight before the opener, Wirtz played as a shadow striker close to Isak. At Newcastle he operated much deeper and much wider.
"When I played football and No 10s sometimes drifted too deep, or too wide, they would get a right rollicking off our manager," Neville said. "The game's not going to be won out there, the game's not going to be won back there, the game's going to be won in the final third, in and around the box."
His prescription is blunt. Less involvement in the build-up, more time within ten yards of the striker, more of the little passes down the side of a centre-back that turn a compact defence inside out. Wirtz has eight league goal involvements since his move. For a player of that price, in that role, it's a number that invites questions.
Neville still thinks they'll come good
What stopped this from being a straight hatchet job was the last part. Neville watched Isak dismantle Gabriel and William Saliba, and Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, in a black-and-white shirt often enough to know what the player is.
"I never saw anybody give Gabriel and Saliba or Van Dijk and Konate a tougher time as Isak did when he played at Newcastle," he said. "Now Liverpool fans and his team-mates and coaching staff, they need to see that, because that's £125m they've spent on him."
On Wirtz: "He's young and he's come to a different country, and I'm all for willing him on." Fair enough. But willing somebody on and waiting for them are different things, and Liverpool have done a lot of the second over the past twelve months.
Context: Alexander Isak, 26, joined Liverpool from Newcastle United for a reported £125m, a British record. Florian Wirtz, 23, arrived from Bayer Leverkusen in the same window and has eight league goal involvements in his first year at Anfield. Liverpool drew 2-2 at Newcastle on Sunday 23 August 2026.
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