Florian Wirtz has said he is looking forward to a reunion with former Bayer Leverkusen teammates Granit Xhaka and Nordi Mukiele, when Liverpool face Sunderland tonight.
Liverpool travel to The Stadium of Light this evening to face a Sunderland team unbeaten on home soil this season. The Reds can move within three points of the top four with a win, and Wirtz will face familiar opposition in the North East.
Former Leverkusen teammates Xhaka and Mukiele are part of the Sunderland squad, with all three players leaving the German side for England last summer.
“Yeah, I know two players of them very well, because I played with them in Leverkusen – [Granit] Xhaka and [Nordi] Mukiele – so I’m happy to see them again,” Wirtz told Liverpoolfc.com.
“But of course, it’s not because I want to see them, I want to take the three points. That’s the task for us. We just try everything to get the three points and everything else doesn’t matter.”
Liverpool will aim to bounce back from defeat against Manchester City at the weekend, as the Reds squandered a late lead to lose at Anfield. Despite that disappointment, Wirtz believes there were positives to take.
“I think we can take a few things from the City game for the rest of the season,” Wirtz added.
“I think in the end, [it’s] my personal opinion and maybe also a few others agree with me, it’s that we didn’t deserve to lose because we made a good game. Of course, in the first half we didn’t have that much control, but we also didn’t concede a lot of chances against us.
“I think we made a quite good game, [won] a lot of duels, especially the second half was good from us. We put pressure on a top team, and I think that we can see that we are in the same [level] and that we compete with top teams.
“That’s what we can take from the game and also [it] gives us [confidence] for the rest of the season [that] we know that we can hurt every team. Against Sunderland it’s not an easy game now, but we just try to give everything again.
“We know it’s going to be physical, so we just try to bring 100 per cent on the pitch until the last minute and take hopefully the three points home.”
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