Wirtz makes first start as Liverpool lose to Milan

Florian Wirtz, a record signing for Liverpool, started for his new club after Milan AC’s team lost to Milan AC 4-2 at the sold-out Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong.

Due to rumors that Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak might leave, neither Darwin Nunez nor Luis Diaz could make the Reds squad.

Nunez missed the game due to injury, but Diaz was omitted as a result of “speculation on his future,” Slot claimed after the game.

Before kick-off, Liverpool legend Sir Kenny Dalglish laid a wreath of flowers in memory of Diogo Jota, who passed away in a car accident earlier this month while he and his brother Andre Silva were driving through the Spanish province of Zamora. The players had the number “Diogo J 20” on their shirts.

The Italian side gave the opening 10 minutes of the Premier League title a lead, but Rafael Leao smacked past Alisson Becker to open the scoring.

From the edge of the box, Dominik Szoboszlai fine-cuttled his equalizer into the top corner of Mike Maignan’s goal.

After being caught again behind late in the second half by England midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Noah Okafor made it 3-1 with a brilliant finish beyond Liverpool’s new Georgia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili.

With a header from Ibrahima Konate’s pinpoint ball into the box in added time, Cody Gakpo equalized with his second goal thanks to a terrible mistake between Mamardashvili and Kostas Tsimikas.

With Nunez and Diaz missing and Ekitike out of the blue, Wirtz, a £116m signing from Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen, filled the unfamiliar false nine role against Milan.

Rio Ngumoha, 16, and Mohamed Salah, a 16-year-old player, were both exciting to the German playmaker.

Although Slot anticipates using Wirtz as an attacking midfielder behind the striker or as a narrow left-sided forward, he demonstrated his ability to connect the forward line from a powerful central role in Hong Kong.

His first-touch and quick thinking kept him one step ahead of his competition and made room for him to advance with the ball.

With just two fit senior centre-backs, Liverpool now has only two fit players after versatile defender Joe Gomez returned to England for work because of an Achilles injury.

In both halves of the defense, Virgil van Dijk started the first period and Konate took over as captain.

Ryan Gravenberch started alongside Van Dijk at the defense’s heart, leaving the usual midfield shield missing, as did Gomez.

After Jarell Quansah’s transfer to Bayer Leverkusen, where Andrew Robertson played centre-back in the pre-season victory at Preston North End, left it to Tsimikas, who was already available as a central defender.

However, Slot asserted that “we don’t think center-back issues exist.” Even though we like him in the top six, Ryan showed he can play that position.

Wataru Endo is able to play there. We still have plenty of options, but Jarell Quansah did leave and we haven’t found a replacement for him.