Florian Wirtz played a key role for Liverpool in the comeback win over Brentford, with Jamie Carragher praising the playmaker for his performance

Jamie Carragher has been full of praise for Florian Wirtz for his role in the Liverpool equalizer against Brentford, after previously asking for more out of the German international.

It follows a slow start to the campaign for the 23-year-old, who had struggled through last season, leading to some section of the fanbase losing patience with him.

There have been more encouraging signs for Wirtz over the past week, with an assist against LASK being backed up by an impressive performance before he took to the pitch against Brentford. After the Bees were reduced to ten men, with the game 1-0 in their favor, the German international was called upon to pull the strings while the opposition was at a disadvantage.

Wirtz managed to do just that, as his creative mind allowed him to setup the equalizer for Victor Munoz, before Alexander Isak scored the eventual winner just minutes later.

In wake of the game, there were still split opinions on the Liverpool star's display. Some had pointed towards a statistic showing nine chances were created, while others points to the low Expected Assist (xA) statistic from the game.

For Carragher, the truth of his display sits somewhere in the middle, as he spoke on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football and praised the attacking midfielder's ability.

He said: "Well I think it [nine chances created stat] tells you that you can play around with different statistics to suit your narrative. I think what doesn't help in this situation is the game is 3pm on a Saturday, so most [UK] people haven't seen the game. And then you look at the stats afterwards, and there is this debate online of like people who are really pro-Wirtz and people who are sort of really against him, it's almost like there's this constant battle and obviously people see me on this side."

"But what I would say is he was fantastic midweek [against LASK]," he continued "Obviously got an assist there for Barcola, but he gets his assist here but his assist is fantastic not because of the pass, but what comes before it.

"So in this shot, we look at this from Brentford's point of view. Don't forget Brentford right now are down to ten men. They lose the ball here, and then what they do is try and crowd and press and be aggressive the normal Brentford way but when you get there, you now have a situation where you have a 4 v 3 in a really tight area.

"So don't forget that you're a man down, if you don't win that in there, you're going to have a major problem and the problem is here in the centre of the pitch. So when Liverpool get out of that with Ngumoha, who was fantastic when he came on, but you've got Ajer here the centre-back and he's thinking now normally what Brentford would do, 'I'll jump in there', but no you're a man down.

"Fantastic touch from Wirtz, but that is fantastic from Munoz, absolutely superb from him and gets Liverpool back in the game. But now I want to look at this from Florian Wirtz's point of view and really slow it down.

"We've highlighted already on this show Youri Tielemans, about looking over his left shoulder, so he [Wirtz] is now aware of where Ajer is and realizes he has the space. What makes this even more special and much better than Tielemans is, lots of players can scan, it's a big part of the game now, but you can scan before the ball is on its way to you because you know the ball is on its way.

"So he knows he's going to get that pass, what makes this extra special now as we roll it really slowly, the ball is now passed, and he checks his right shoulder, now his left shoulder, and the ball is on him, and that first touch, the scanning and the first touch, is the assist.

"Not so much that pass, because that's a simple pass for Florian Wirtz. So the scanning, understanding the space he had, the left foot touch was actually why he deserved the assist, not so much the pass because it was a simple pass of that quality."

It perhaps shows just how good Wirtz can be when he has the time, space, and connections around him to create for Liverpool. However, that is against the backdrop of playing against weaker opposition in LASK and ten men against Brentford.

The Reds will certainly hope that those displays can build up some confidence and momentum for the star, but with the acknowledgement that it will need to come in other games where the match is not quite as simple.