James Pearce has voiced his concerns regarding the form of one Liverpool player in particular who he believes has endured something of a slump since the turn of the year.
Dominik Szoboszlai was the Reds’ most expensive signing of last summer’s transfer window at £60m, and a couple of show-stopping goals in his first few weeks at Anfield suggested that we’d landed a game-changing midfielder.
However, the Hungarian’s recent displays have come in for questioning, and The Athletic journalist feels that the 23-year-old hasn’t been at his best for some time.
Speaking on the Walk On podcast in reviewing Liverpool’s defeat to Crystal Palace on Sunday, Pearce said: “They just seemed to have lost their momentum. Szoboszlai came on for Wataru Endo but that didn’t really help them. He’s been completely unable to get anywhere near to the levels he hit before Christmas.
“There was a lack of belief in his game, the lack of conviction in getting a finish horribly wrong from the edge of the box.”
Of Szoboszlai’s seven goals for Liverpool, just three have come since Christmas, and two of those were in the Europa League round of 16 romp against Sparta Prague (Transfermarkt).
The £120,000-per-week midfielder had some positive notes to his appearance off the bench yesterday – he won four duels and played three key passes (Sofascore) – but with his only shot being the wayward attempt that Pearce referenced, he didn’t have the desired impact from an attacking point of view.
His display at Old Trafford the previous weekend, when he missed two ‘big chances’ and got only one of his five shots on target (Sofascore), illustrated that he’s lost the conviction that he was showing in the first half of the season.
Szoboszlai certainly isn’t the only Liverpool player to be struggling right now – he hasn’t really got back into his stride since the hamstring injury which sidelined him earlier this year – but we know that he’s capable of far better than what he’s produced lately.
Overall he can still be quite satisfied with his first campaign at Anfield, but hopefully he can quickly get back to being the mesmerising midfield genius that we witnessed last autumn. We need him to.
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