Over the next five gameweeks our model projects 16 points for Wirtz and 13 for Rice, so Wirtz is the pick.

What does this comparison account for?

Price, ownership, form, expected goals and assists per 90, minutes reliability, and the difficulty of each player's next five fixtures.

Wirtz vs Rice

Head-to-head over the next 5 gameweeks. Our model favours Wirtz by 3 projected points.

Wirtz

LIVERPOOL · MID · £7.3

projected points / 5 GW

Buy71%

MCI (H)BRE (A)BHA (H)ARS (H)CRY (A)

Rice

ARSENAL · MID · £7.4

projected points / 5 GW

Hold57%

LEE (H)NFO (A)EVE (H)LIV (A)HUL (H)

Stat by stat

£7.3Price£7.4

18Total points20

4.0Form4.2

3.6Points / game4.0

5.7%Owned11.6%

402Minutes411

0Goals0

2Assists2

1.00xG0.12

0.40xA0.69

31.4ICT23.4

3.4Avg FDR (5)3.0

16Projected pts13

The verdict

Wirtz comes out ahead on the five-gameweek projection (16 vs 13), largely because of the fixture run (average difficulty 3.4) and a stronger underlying profile.

Buy — Wirtz is one of the better MID options for the next 5 gameweeks.

Hold — Rice is fine to keep, but there is no urgent case to bring him in.

More MID comparisons

Wirtz vs Groß Wirtz vs Schade Wirtz vs Cherki Wirtz vs Semenyo Wirtz vs Saka Wirtz vs Gakpo