Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher
Jamie Carragher during punditry for Sky Sports.
Jamie Carragher has raised doubts over Liverpool star Dominik Szoboszlai’s place in Andoni Iraola’s team.
Szoboszlai was outstanding for the Reds last season, winning player of the year as Arne Slot asked him to fill in at right-back as well as in his preferred box-to-box midfield role.
The 26-year-old has found the start of the current campaign more difficult, thanks in part to injury but also – according to Carragher – because of Iraola’s use of him in the double pivot.
“The discussion that has been there all pre-season and all season is the balance of Liverpool’s midfield,” he said on Sky Sports. “You’ve got Szoboszlai there and Mac Allister – again, individually, two really good players, talented players, but do they work as a partnership in there?
“Trey Nyoni really is the only midfield player Liverpool have right now who almost sees danger, stays in that position, stays in the middle of the pitch, and can actually play there as well.
“You think of Crystal Palace today, how would they win the game? You’d probably think it would be on the counter-attack and maybe set-pieces if they get some.
“So will Liverpool’s midfielders vacate that position a lot? Yes, Szoboszlai will, that’s one of the reasons why he’s probably not 100 per cent suited, I think, to that double pivot.”
Sturridge agreed with his former Reds team-mate as he urged Szoboszlai to consider his positioning more in that deeper midfield role.
“I think it’s about, in his mind, managing how much he presses and when to go, as opposed to just pressing for pressing’s sake,” he said. “I’m not saying that he does that all the time.
“But I think the reason why Liverpool are open is because they don’t have someone who’s reading in front of the defence, and both of the midfielders, whether it’s Mac Allister or Szoboszlai, have a tendency to vacate that space in front of the defence because of the press the manager wants to do.
“It’s about him understanding ‘okay, I’m going to play those passes in between the lines, I am going to press, I have that intent.’ That’s his game, he works hard, he presses with that fierce action.
“But, I need to see a bit more of a smart way of pressing from him as well.”
Szob ‘dreadful’ vs Fenerbahce
Journalist David Lynch called out Szoboszlai for his performance against Fenerbahce.
Lynch said on Anfield Index’s Media Matters podcast: “A terrible night. He was just very, very poor.
“He’s not great at progressing the ball from deeper positions. He’s kind of struggled in that aspect a little bit when he’s been used there.
“And he was dreadful. There’s just no two ways of talking about it, really.
“In terms of leading the press, no help whatsoever, no tackles made.”
Lynch added: “Yeah, just couldn’t get into the game or influence it.
“He just had to do better than that. And I just think that you cannot make a case to put him in the team at the moment.”
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