Former team-mate of Luka Modric, David Bentley, has told Liverpool they must “stick with” Florian Wirtz, who is “exactly the same” as the Croatian icon.

Liverpoolsplashed around ￡450million on new signings in the summer. Wirtzwas the second-most expensive of those, commanding ￡116million after a superb season of 16 goals and 15 assists with Bayer Leverkusen.

So far at Anfield, his production has been nowhere close. The attacking midfielder has three assists to his name, is not touching the ball nearly as often, and the chances he provides have, at times, gone to waste.

The physicality of the league has at times evidently knocked him off his stride. The diminutive midfielder lost possession nine times against Manchester City, and was fouled three times, as the Citizens kicked him about. He also did not attempt a single tackle.

While Liverpool have attempted to get him into games in different scenarios and positions, to little avail so far, he’s been given high praise by Bentley, who feels they need to stick by him.

He said on Sky Sports:?“He is an unbelievable player, so talented, fans and pundits have to stick by him. Yes he’s exactly the same [as Modric].

“When Modric came through the door, he was exactly the same in the way he receives the ball, scans, he knows what he is doing. He was an unbelievably technically gifted player, and both can set the tone and tempo of a football match, so you have to stick with him.”

The respective statures of Modric and Wirtz are similar, with both under 5ft 8in, and neither the most physically dominant.

As a result, they have to play in a different way as a player who could easily shrug off an opponent. Wirtz is clearly a fantastic distributor, with almost 70 assists to his name in club football already.

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He needs to find himself in pockets of space where he is not going to get bullied so easily, though, so he is able to make his passes count.

That is not only a personal problem, with his team-mates needing to realise when they could put him in danger by giving him the ball.

Once he gels more with his side and finds himself in positions without the threat of getting clattered or simply outmuscled, the German’s qualities are likely to shine.

For example, when he assisted twice in the same game against Eintracht Frankfurt, Wirtz was slotted behind the defence for the first, able to pick out a perfect pass to Hugo Ekitike, before he drew a defender onto him before simply offloading the ball to Dominik Szoboszlai in space, who scored from range.

READ MORE: Liverpool will ‘drastically improve’ but they might have to drop Wirtz first