According to "Varzesh3", the 2-0 victory of Liverpool over Brighton, recorded the first win of Andoni Iraola in the English Premier League at Anfield and took the Reds to fourth place in the table.
However, in his post-match remarks, Iraola spoke about Florian Wirtz's influence almost as much as about the result. The German player had heard repeatedly during the week that Liverpool had not been able to get the best out of him, but on Sunday he gave a firm answer to those criticisms with an excellent display; although an ankle problem forced him to leave the pitch earlier than expected.
Iraola said about Wirtz's role: "It is not just about statistics and numbers. The point is that when he is on the pitch, the team performs better."
With these words, the Liverpool manager praised a player whose influence goes beyond what is seen in the match statistics. He then explained Wirtz's injury situation: "Unfortunately he had to leave the pitch because of a minor ankle sprain. It does not seem to be a serious problem, but we have to wait and see what happens."
Andoni Iraola then spoke about Ronald Araújo and how his fighting spirit delights the fans, saying: "This helps the team a lot. We all enjoy seeing Ronald's fighting spirit. He does very well in winning one-on-one battles, even physical battles. He wins duel after duel. Defensively he has performed very well, and I am happy for him.
In the last two games, I took him off the pitch because at half-time we needed more attacking options. Even so, he continued training and working without any problem. Today we needed him more, and he gave us a very good 90 minutes."
The Liverpool manager went on to explain the similarity of the two teams' playing styles and the midfield battles: "We know how Brighton play and they know our style of play too. They press and we press. They try to start building play from the back and we do the same. Sometimes we are forced to play more directly. They too turned to direct play, using Gomez and sending long balls.
In the defensive line, many one-on-one battles take shape in midfield and relatively high up the pitch. Every duel you can win gives you the space needed to get into one-on-one situations with your wingers and your striker. In the first half we did well in winning these battles and were able to create good attacking opportunities for our players."
Source: Varzesh3
