Rio Ngumoha grabbed the headlines with his stoppage-time winner, but Arne Slot was keen to praise another Liverpool player who was crucial to the dramatic victory over Newcastle last night.
With Jeremie Frimpong injured, Conor Bradley only fit enough to make the bench having just come back from his own layoff and Joe Gomez lacking match fitness, Dominik Szoboszlai was pressed into action in an unfamiliar right-back role.
The Hungarian midfielder was faced with a potentially thankless task against the Magpies, but he rose to the challenge with a tireless performance at St James’ Park on Monday.
Slot praises Szoboszlai ‘mentality’ v Newcastle
Speaking after the match, Slot highlighted the 24-year-old’s contribution to the result by heaping praise on the mental fortitude that he showed in such testing circumstances.
The Liverpool head coach said of Szoboszlai (via liverpoolfc.com): “Talking about mentality, it is not easy to play as a full-back if you’ve only been a midfielder in your career. He played there once in pre-season – I think it was against Stoke when we played behind closed doors – but in that game we only had the ball and now he had to defend a lot.
“For him to put in a performance like that, you can say a lot about his mentality – as you can about all the players because this was mentally such a difficult evening, such a difficult place to go to, such a difficult opponent to play against. For us to be able to get a result, let alone getting a win, is a big compliment for the boys.”
Szoboszlai was an unsung hero for Liverpool last night
Slot referenced the pre-season game in which Szoboszlai lined out at right-back, but this was his first time doing so in a competitive match (Transfermarkt), and he was something of an unsung hero for Liverpool last night.
His tremendous performance wasn’t lost on Ian Doyle, who awarded him a 9/10 in his player ratings for the Liverpool Echo and wrote: ‘Worked so hard as emergency right-back and defended well at far post on occasion. Began to find space going forward once Newcastle were down to 10, and restored to midfield late on and dummied brilliantly for winner.’
Indeed he had a key role to play in Ngumoha’s stoppage-time goal by having the presence of mind to let the ball run through to the 16-year-old from Mo Salah’s low cross, a largely unheralded yet pivotal contribution from our number 8.
As per Sofascore, Szoboszlai completed 40 of his 45 passes last night (89% success), won one duel and one tackle, made four clearances, executed four accurate long balls and lost possession only seven times from 58 touches.
He also restricted Harvey Barnes’ influence on the left flank as the Newcastle winger failed to record a shot or complete a dribble all night and was limited to just 16 touches of the ball.
In a game where the Hungarian was thrown in at the deep end at right-back and had to either sink or swim, it was very much a case of the latter, with his strong performance reassuring Slot that he could adapt to that role again if needed for the team.
Surely, following the first two games, someone should offer to drive Konate to Madrid so that his body can rejoin his head because it’s obviously not at Liverpool. Carragher, as old as he is could have played better than that
Lucky two times…both fluke wins. I don’t know how good a coach is Slot but his team management is below par. Two of the most expensive players were replaced. Etikite…I don’t know why. Chiesa was just no show as a replacement. Nagumoha should have been brought in at half time. He is a class. Liverpool won the E.nglish Premier League last season not because of the present Coach. That team was well set up and coached by Klopp. Slot just played Klopp’s team without a single change.This season Liverpool bought in about eight new players spending some $300 million. We’ll, You can see the results. Did we buy the right players and sold the wrong players? And still trying to sell some other good players like Elliot. You have to have a team well drilled to win the League not only big name expensive players. Well so far we have got the six points with the mediocre teams. Konate has been perhaps the worst defender this season. Sell him if his heart is not here. Why are we dilly dallying for a few dollars in case of Mark Guehi. He is the man we need at the back. Time to check Liverpool…
Konate is spiritually off from Liverpool FC that is why his physical appearance cannot function normal. Let him go, we are not angry with him. He has done well before. I believed strongly that Guehi will join. That game yesterday was not bad as some people take it. Newcastle came into that game with intent to make a statement, that without Isak the can upset Liverpool, part of it caused them the red card. If you check the two goals they scored, no one was a straight master stroke like what we saw from Liverpool. If Mac could have been around with Gravenberg , Curtis could have come from the bench, that could have given us a better result. Kudos to SZoboszlai. His dummy gave us the win. The goalkeeper focused on him while he left the ball to Rio a lad Lion of Liverpool. God bless Liverpool FC and keep our players safe.
Let Konate go & bring in Guehi!
It has been suggested many times that LFC should let Konate go. He’s obviously nowhere near his form for last season, and now his heart is with Madrid. The longer he is played, the more LFC will suffer. When a player’s head is turned, he is no longer the same. Why is the Guehi deal taking so long? We could have lost the match against Newcastle with a very shaky defence and Arsenal are next. That match will tell us if we are really ready to defend our league title among other competitions.