Exploring Szoboszlai's Role This Season - Stats and Positional Analysis

Written on 09/10/2024

There has been a mixed consensus regarding Dominik Szoboszlai’s performances this season. The Hungarian national team captain, signed from RB Leipzig last summer, primarily played as a right-sided central midfielder in a three-man midfield under Jürgen Klopp. However, under new manager Arne Slot, he has been asked to take on a slightly different role this season.

The non-contextualised version of the story is that the 23-year-old is playing as a number 10 in a 4-2-1-3 system. You would see mainstream media outlets providing analysis of this kind and then showing the most basic of stats without meaning to typecast a player.

Looking at it with depth, Slot’s midfield has more layers than most can imagine. It is not a rigid system where two (Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister) are sitting behind the ball and Szoboszlai has the role to knit everything together between midfield and attack. Their starting spots could be like that, but the position changes umpteen times in a game.

A generic article on how the engine room functions was done by me a few weeks ago. You check it out here - link.

For this article, the focus is on Szoboszlai and exploring the role he plays for Liverpool under Slot. We will also look at his numbers to focus on where the manager wants him to sharpen up compared to the previous seasons. 

First up, we have his average positions from each of the seven league games played.

In only two games (Bournemouth and Crystal Palace) we see the 23-year-old’s average position mirroring that of an orthodox central number 10. He played on the left of a three-man midfield at Old Trafford in a 4-3-3 system, while operating on the other side of the same formation against Brentford and Wolves. Against Nottingham Forest and Ipswich, it was a mixture of him staying central and also peeling off in the right half-space.

The picture shows that the Hungarian is versatile enough to play in different spaces in the region between the defensive midfield and attack. 

Next up, we have a couple of dashboards looking at Szoboszlai’s numbers from this season and where he is at among the division’s midfielders - 

The pass success rate is solid for a number eight with room for improvement. His chance-creation numbers, however, aren’t as high as those of other key playmakers like Kevin De Bruyne or James Maddison. The reason for this is simple - he’s not an out-and-out number 10.