With a goal and assist in the 2-0 win at Manchester City on Sunday, Dominik Szoboszlai showed just how crucial a role he can play for Liverpool in the run-in.
Dominik Szoboszlai greeted the final whistle at the Etihad on Sunday by sinking to the turf, exhausted with his efforts over a draining 90 minutes, and ecstatic at the outcome.
Liverpool’s number eight played a key role in a 2-0 win away to the reigning champions Manchester City, setting up his side’s first and scoring the second in a result that appears to have had a seismic impact on the title race. In the eyes of the Opta supercomputer, the win, coupled with Arsenal’s surprise defeat to West Ham on Saturday, took Liverpool from heavy favourites to win the league before the weekend (84.7% chance) to near certainties after (95.8%).
Szoboszlai’s role was more than just those crucial, match-winning contributions, too. As has become customary for the Hungarian, he ran himself into the ground.
There is something about the midfielder’s appearance that makes him look like he has put more of a shift in than, say, the perfectly pristine Virgil van Dijk or the unflappable Mohamed Salah. Szoboszlai’s greased hair can make it look like he is drenched in sweat, and combined with his unshaven look, he can appear more dishevelled than most in a world of kempt footballers at pains to always look their best.
Mohamed Salah
In Szoboszlai’s case, however, that might be because he actually has worked harder than his teammates.
Against City, he ran further than any other Liverpool player (11.5 kilometres). It was the sixth-furthest any Liverpool player has run in any Premier League game this season. Szoboszlai alone is responsible for the top two positions in this list (11.8km vs Tottenham and 11.7km vs Manchester United), as well as six of the top 11.
He was particularly valuable in the win at City because Liverpool spent so long out of possession, and there is nobody in the squad who works off the ball like him. Liverpool had their lowest possession share on record (since 2003-04) in a Premier League game they won.
Liverpool tend to dominate possession and they are good enough to do so, but they are also more than happy – and have the skillset – to kill off opponents without having much of the ball when necessary.
They were ruthlessly clinical against City, scoring two goals from eight shots and 0.71 expected goals, while the hosts failed to score from their 16 attempts on goal (0.65 xG). Liverpool have scored more goals from fast breaks (defined as an attempt created after the defensive team quickly turn defence into attack after winning the ball in their own half) than any other team in the Premier League this season (12).
Szoboszlai plays a key role in that, making sure to support every single attack from his position at the head of the midfield and playing a part in the move more often than most, too. Across the Premier League in 2024-25, only Salah (33), Cole Palmer, Matheus Cunha and Nicolas Jackson (all 20) have been involved in more shot-ending fast-break moves than Szoboszlai (19).
He is also a very useful player when Liverpool are playing more on the front foot and looking to press high up the pitch. He is one of only 11 Premier League players to have made at least 200+ pressures in the final third and 300+ pressures in the middle third of the pitch this season, where a pressure is defined as approaching the player in possession with the aim of either winning back the ball or limiting their passing options.
Like a tribute to the Jürgen Klopp era, however, Szoboszlai stands out even more for his counter-pressing, which is when a pressure begins within two seconds of losing the ball. Only three players – Dominic Solanke, Dejan Kulusevski (both for the all too overzealous pressers, Tottenham) and Palmer – have made more counter-pressures in the Premier League this season than Szoboszlai (240), and Kulusevski and Palmer have both played at least 300 minutes more than the Hungarian. He jumps up to third on a per-90 basis with 11.9, behind only Solanke and Bournemouth’s Marcus Tavernier (1,000+ mins played).
He helps bring an intensity to the Liverpool midfield with which few opponents can contend. They aren’t the all-action side of the early Klopp days, but they do suffocate teams with their pressing and can still be utterly relentless with it at their best. Teams regularly get penned in their own third when facing them.
Pressing is only half the job, though, and Liverpool have plenty of quality on the ball when they do have it back. Szoboszlai has bags of it.
He is a wonderfully technical footballer, with a brilliant first touch and excellent passing range, and he uses that ability to impact games with his distribution. He is far from merely safe on the ball, and he is hugely effective, too.
We can use a metric called ‘total passer impact’ to show just how much influence he has on games. This metric measures how often a pass is actually completed compared to what’s called the ‘pass probability’ (which is calculated using passing data from past Premier League seasons). In other words, it calculates pass completion but is weighted in such a way that difficulty of passes is taken into account.
For example, if a player completes a pass with a pass probability of 0.75, they are awarded 1-0.75=0.25 passer impact. On the other hand, if a player fails with that pass, they are deducted 0-0.75=-0.75 passer impact. In short, completed passes contribute positive values, and incomplete ones negatively affect the score. More difficult – and therefore more impactful – passes are worth more than easier ones.
Szoboszlai ranks eighth in the Premier League this season for total passer impact, with 42.4, but he jumps up to fourth among non-defenders, behind only Mateo Kovacic (55.8), Ilkay Gündogan (49.5) and Youri Tielemans (42.5). What this suggests is that, according to this metric, these are the midfielders who have the biggest positive influence on their teams with their passing.
Of course, there are limitations. A completed two-yard pass is hardly better than a 50-yarder that a defender intercepts initially but still leads to a goalscoring chance, but in these instances, the completed two-yard pass will score positively, and the failed long ball will not.
But it is still noteworthy that Szoboszlai, an attacking midfielder, sits among defensive midfielders and defenders at the top of this list. None of the others also have anything like the impact the Hungarian does in the final third.
That is where his contributions were most telling on Sunday. His wonderful, deft touch from Alexis Mac Allister’s corner set Salah up for the opener, and then he wrong-footed Ederson with a left-footed effort from just inside the box to put Liverpool into an unassailable two-goal lead.
It’s an area of his game for which he has come in for a little criticism. After his goal and assist on Sunday, he now has a relatively unremarkable 12 goal involvements in 58 Premier League appearances. With seven this season, he ranks way down in sixth for Liverpool.
So far, it hasn’t really been a problem. Liverpool are flying high at the top of the league, and are also favourites to win both the Champions League and the League Cup, according to the Opta supercomputer.
But with Darwin Núñez struggling for form and confidence, Diogo Jota unreliable when it comes to staying fit, and Cody Gakpo only just returning from a brief layoff of his own, there may be need for Szoboszlai to keep on chipping in in the final third.
He played as one of the two furthest players forward at City (though he was far from a traditional centre-forward), having been tasked in last week’s draw at Aston Villa with providing thrust through the middle of the pitch when Jota moved out wide. Szoboszlai covers so much ground that he is able to play that dual-purpose role. When he does so, he is almost two players in one.
With Salah so threatening, he often occupies two defenders himself, there’s inevitably space to exploit when Liverpool attack. Szoboszlai is showing he can be the man to take advantage.
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