The Dominik Szoboszlai Conundrum

Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai was contributing hugely to the Reds' attack but has stopped. Why does Arne Slot keep selecting him?

“Dominik Szoboszlai continues to confuse me with every passing week.” KARL COPPACK, THE ANFIELD WRAP

“Me too, [Karl]. Not bad, just not quite right in a way I can't identify.” ME, REPLYING ON X

Let’s rewind. We’re three weeks into the season and new Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has made a perfect start to life in England. His side have beaten Ipswich, Brentford and Manchester United without conceding a goal. Sadly there’s an international break now but that won’t halt the Reds’ momentum, will it?

Ahem.

As we now approach the third pause in the 2024/25 campaign for the all-important UEFA Nations League (ahem), Liverpool have largely continued in the vein in which they started, winning almost every match. The increased fixture intensity has meant Slot has been changing his starting XIs when he didn’t have to in the early stages of the season. Nonetheless, if the Reds were playing a cup final tomorrow you could confidently predict most of their side lining up at kick-off.

One man who would probably make the cut is Dominik Szoboszlai. His place might be up for debate, though. The 24-year-old was integral to so much of what Liverpool did well in those opening three weeks but has contributed little of note since. What has happened?

Across the first three games of the season, Szoboszlai led the Premier League for carries of at least five metres which ended with the player creating a chance, with seven. As he recorded 14 in the entirety of 2023/24 it was clearly a hot run of form, but he hasn’t added to his tally since.

Most creative carriers after three weeks of 2024/25

Similarly, the former RB Leipzig midfielder played a pair of successful through balls at Portman Road, one of which created an Opta-defined big chance for Mohamed Salah. Again, tumbleweeds since (in the league; he logged one each against Bologna and his old side). All of Szoboszlai’s starts have come in the number 10 position, the ideal spot for through balls, as Curtis Jones proved against Bayer Leverkusen. There is one clear factor which might be influencing this downturn in productivity.

It’s risky to read too much into a player’s average position. Touching the ball on both goal lines puts your average on the half way line, after all. But if you draw a line through the centre of Szoboszlai’s furthest forward mark in 2024/25, you find plenty that were more advanced last term, despite him theoretically playing a more attacking role now.

Dominik Szoboszlai’s average Premier League position, 2023/24 (left) and 2024/25

Game three this season was his best performance, in the 3-0 win at Old Trafford. Liverpool’s number eight almost scored the first goal (though Luis Díaz beat him to it), assisted the third and recorded the joint-second most pressures. He should have kicked the ball into the net instead of dawdling with it late on, but you can’t have everything.

As irritating as that was, far more concerning is that the captain of Hungary has not created a big chance in the 862 minutes he has played since putting Salah clean-through in the second half against United. He’s only set up two shots full stop across the last six league games, both of which were worth a meagre 0.03 expected goals.

It is Szoboszlai’s prowess off the ball, combined with a hard-running, all-energy style, which is likely keeping him in the team. Indeed, an analysis of Liverpool’s 2-2 draw at Arsenal had a significant section on the Hungarian, mostly focussing on runs he made and spaces he took up to distract opponents rather than anything with the ball.

For off-ball defence, Szoboszlai led the team for pressures against Nottingham Forest, Bologna and Chelsea, topping the counter-pressure standings for the first and third of those games as well as in the win in Milan. Does this exertion leave him less able to contribute positively in possession though?

Whatever the reason, that is what is happening. When judged against attacking midfielders and wingers in the Premier League, the Szoboszlai of 2024/25 is in the bottom 26 per cent or worse for shots, expected assists, successful take-ons and touches in the opposition penalty area.

The below radar compares his data from the last two seasons. It’s important to note his percentiles are against central midfielders for 2023/24, so the differing scales mean the raw numbers won’t necessarily have changed by as wide a margin as shown here. Equally, if you’re playing in what is arguably a front four for the current Premier League and Champions League leaders, you need to deliver output.

His on-ball work can be boiled down into the expected threat (xT) metric, which values actions a player makes in terms of their impact on their team potentially scoring. It’s essentially the same as the possession value model Ian Graham developed as his first task after joining Liverpool.

Per MarkStats, Szoboszlai averaged 0.16 xT per 90 in the league last season, which put him joint-fifth in the Liverpool chart. As Harvey Elliott (0.23) played around 750 minutes fewer, he was arguably only truly behind Trent Alexander-Arnold (0.31), Andy Robertson (0.23) and Salah (0.20); the three remaining key attacking elements of peak Jürgen Klopp Liverpool in other words.

The team’s expected threat has dropped this season, so it’s little surprise the same is true for Szoboszlai (0.11). However, he’s now eighth in the standings. As well as trailing the Reds’ xT big three, he’s now also behind the likes of Virgil van Dijk (0.13) while being just 0.01 ahead of Ibrahima Konaté. A number 10 offering similar attacking threat to the centre-backs? Maybe this is par for Slot-ball, but apparently so.

Even if it’s by tactical design, the numbers aren’t great. In the 2-1 win over Chelsea, the last league match Szoboszlai completed, his passing did more damage than good in an expected threat sense.

The Reds’ Premier League goal difference, both actual and expected, is better when Szoboszlai plays compared with when he does not. This was not the case in his debut campaign, so it could be argued he is more important to the success of the team now than he was under Klopp.

It doesn’t feel unreasonable to expect a little more productivity when he’s in possession, though. What have you got in your boots, Dom? Liverpool supporters are a little confused and would love to know.