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Florian Wirtz has been backed by an unlikely source, Man United cult hero Dimitar Berbatov. The silky Bulgarian, who spent four seasons at Liverpool's rivals and scored 54 goals for the club, is adamant the £116m German will overcome his early struggles to thrive at Anfield. Speaking on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, Berbatov said: 'I love him. He's a fantastic player. He will be unbelievable, trust me. 'Hopefully, he will be patient. Hopefully, he'll have good people around him, agent, family, whatever. Hopefully, the coach sees his quality like everybody sees him. 'I'm sure that everybody sees his quality, and they'll give him that time that he needs to fit into the team. And I guarantee you, he's going to be a success.' And Berbatov went on to compare Wirtz to one of the legends of the game, Luka Modric, who is still going strong at 40 with AC Milan. He added: 'The way he sees football, how he looks for the space, how he knows how to position himself, the touches on the ball, the improvisation, the eye for the pass and for the goals. 'Of course, someone can argue that his physique is not that great for the Premier League. But then you can easily see the great players of his position, like Modric, also the same build. 'Modric. F***ing monster. It's unbelievable. So give him time. I think he's going to be unbelievable for Liverpool.' The first big move of Berbatov's career was to Wirtz's old side Bayer Leverkusen where it took him a while to find his feet. And he had the same experience when making the leap up to the Premier League with Tottenham. He believes Wirtz's ambition will be greater than his fear of failure, as his was during his playing days. 'The same process was happening when I went to Leverkusen,' he explained. 'In the beginning, it didn't work out quite well. I needed to be patient. In Spurs, again, new environment, again, new people, new language, new everything. 'Again, the things were taking slowly to happen for me. I was thinking, maybe I need to go back. 'But when I was thinking like this, then my other, not personality, but my other me, was telling me "No, no, no, no, you see what happened in Leverkusen, just be patient, you have the quality and deserve to be here. You wanted something to change. Now you're here. Now be stubborn, be patient. Keep working, not sitting. It's not going to fall like this on your lap". 'You basically want to go to your safe place, your safe environment. But you need to have that motivation and that ambition in you as well to overcome the fear. So my ambition was bigger than my fear.' Wirtz delivered arguably his best performance in a Liverpool shirt in the 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League last week, providing two assists. Until then, he'd made no goal contributions in a struggling side, with Arne Slot's men having now lost six of their last seven games. They were knocked out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night by familiar foes Crystal Palace after Slot put out an almost completely changed side littered with youngsters. Wirtz and the first team were rested on the night ahead of Saturday's huge clash with Aston Villa, who are level on points with Liverpool going into the 8:00pm kick-off.
