“That’s not something to be taken for granted!” Florian Wirtz offers special thanks to Jürgen Klopp

Florian Wirtz's Liverpool form has picked up since his first Germany training camp under Jürgen Klopp as national team coach. Is there a connection?

Klopp doesn't think so. Asked at Thursday's press conference about the German standout's improved goals and assists return for the Reds since the internationals in late September and early October, he credited Wirtz's "immense quality" above all.

"I've always said that Flo would find his feet at Liverpool over time. It was a difficult period when he arrived, and it was simply hard for him to settle into a team that wasn't functioning at 100 per cent because other things were more important at the time," Klopp explained ahead of Friday's Nations League match in Serbia, also alluding to Diogo Jota's tragic death before the start of Wirtz's debut season.

That Wirtz was finding his feet at Anfield "over time" came as no surprise to Klopp. He also confirmed that Wirtz was one of the national team players he contacted frequently and worked with "closely". "A Florian Wirtz in top form can help us enormously in achieving our goals," the national team coach added.

Germany returnee Niclas Füllkrug recently suggested that Klopp had already had a positive influence on Wirtz in the early stages of his first tenure, which began in late July. "He has a particular insight into England and can assess situations there," Füllkrug said of Klopp, before raising a possible link with Wirtz's improving form in recent weeks: "I read a statistic about Florian Wirtz before and after his selection for the large squad — in other words, before he worked with Jürgen Klopp for the first time and afterwards," he explained.

"You get the feeling that someone has given him a helping hand and lent him an ear. It simply helps when you can talk to someone who knows the situation and the place. Someone who understands what things are like there," Füllkrug added, referring to Klopp's own past at Liverpool. "It's helpful that he has such a broad view of the whole picture."

Before Klopp took Wirtz under his wing for the first time as part of the enlarged squad in September, the midfielder had faced heavy criticism in England, particularly from television pundits such as Jamie Carragher, and had managed just one assist in six competitive appearances for the Reds. Since returning from that first Germany training camp of the Klopp era, where he produced a fantastic performance against Serbia in particular, he has registered two goals and four assists.

Wirtz himself confirmed how much time the national team coach devotes to his players, including him, and described their exchanges when he is in Liverpool.

"Most of the time he sends a short message after matches. He congratulates me when things have gone well, but he also tells me when I haven't been so good," said the 23-year-old. Wirtz welcomes criticism, though "not at the time, of course", and finds it helpful when Klopp points out mistakes in his game. "It's not something you can take for granted that the national team coach takes so much time to watch club matches and comment on them. I'm very happy that he's so interested."

On Tuesday, Füllkrug said something similar about Klopp. In a personal conversation, the national team coach surprised him with his detailed knowledge of how Werder Bremen work and play.

Klopp knew "a lot about the things we do in Bremen, which I give him a lot of credit for. As national team coach, you can't watch every match for 90 minutes, but he knew quite a bit and had picked up on things that pleasantly surprised me, because I simply don't expect that from a national team coach," Füllkrug stressed.