Szoboszlai is the ultimate square peg in a round hole in this Liverpool team. He’s got great technical ability, wand of a right foot, incredible engine but he lacks in 2 clear ways: 1) He’s not good at progressing the ball between the lines. 2) He relies a bit too much on his physical prowess to cover space instead of taking up good positions on the field. Both of these make him a bad profile to play in an Iraola midfield two.
There is a clear and obvious solution to this: Play Szoboszlai at RB. I know, I know, It feels like groundhog day with all the bitter taste of last season but hear me out.
With the squad we have, RB is an obvious weakness till Bradley comes back. Frimpong can be great in an overlap with a left footed right winger cutting in but since we don’t have that, it feels like he’s very much fighting for width with whoever is playing on RW (Gakpo, Muñoz, Rio). We need a right back who can now play in the right half space like Trent did in 23/24. This suits Szoboszlai perfectly, It’s the closest he can get to his best position (right sided 8 in a 4-3-3) in this 4-2-3-1 formation we play and he can play those De Bruyne/Gerrard esque balls from that right half space to back post for Isak. With Araujo and Jacquet as RCB, there’s good cover for him defensively.
It also fits Liverpool perfectly: It allows Iraola to play Mac Allister/Nyoni as the 6 and Gravenberch slightly ahead. This gives us deep progression from midfield & cover with positionally sensible players at 6. It also unlocks Gravenberch to intelligently dribble and carry the ball without worrying too much about vacating space. Szoboszlai will also be much better positioned to be part of the 2-3 rest defense from RB rather than in midfield 2.
Szoboszlai is the one who is most closely compared to Gerrard in the current squad. It’s time for him to do a Gerrard of 05/06 and play on the right, Who knows, maybe, like Gerrard there’s a PFA player of the year award at the end of the season for him!