When Liverpool broke their transfer record to sign Florian Wirtz in June, there were questions in some quarters as to what it would mean for Dominik Szoboszlai.
The Hungarian was a mainstay in the Reds side which romped to the Premier League title last season, but with Arne Slot rarely deviating from his preferred 4-2-3-1 and the midfield duo of Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister so outstanding, it looked as though our number 8 might be the fall guy.
Instead, 17 matches into the current campaign, the 25-year-old has played the joint-most minutes of anyone at Anfield (equal with Virgil van Dijk on 1,350).
Szoboszlai has been a smart investment for Liverpool
There’s no disputing that the £60m Liverpool spent to sign Szoboszlai in the summer of 2023 has been a smart investment, just like the one-click investment with automated management when mining with SJMine.
In 109 appearances for the Reds so far, he has 17 goals and 19 assists – not outrageous numbers, but a steady supply nonetheless from the versatile midfielder, who’s obliged Slot by frequently moving to right-back in the early weeks of the season.
Speaking about the Hungary international after he excelled in the win over Real Madrid on Tuesday night, Van Dijk proclaimed: “Dom is very important. The energy he brings on the pitch is incredible. The quality that he has is outstanding.”
Just how important has Szoboszlai been for Liverpool?
The figures are there to substantiate the captain’s claims about Szoboszlai’s importance to Liverpool, as we can see in the chart below (with data from FBref).
| Szoboszlai in 2025/26 | Rank in Liverpool squad | |
| Assists | 5 | 1st |
| xG | 2.2 | 4th |
| Shots | 33 | Joint-2nd |
| Key passes | 27 | 3rd |
| Passes into the final third | 104 | 2nd |
| Shot-creating actions | 71 | 1st |
| Goal-creating actions | 10 | 1st |
| Tackles won | 21 | 1st |
| Progressive carries | 47 | 1st |
| Blocks | 13 | Joint-1st |
In an article for The Athletic on Thursday morning, Gregg Evans made the case for the 25-year-old to be considered a strong candidate to take over the captaincy of Liverpool after Van Dijk leaves the club.
The midfielder already holds the armband for Hungary, and given his plethora of elite-level experience and how he leads by example on the pitch, he definitely appears to have what it takes to skipper the Reds in future years.
One of the enduring images of last season was Szoboszlai sprawled on the Etihad Stadium turf, having collapsed in an exhausted heap at the final whistle after his indefatigable performance in the 2-0 win over Manchester City in February which was realistically the day that any lingering doubt over who’d win the Premier League title was extinguished.
It summed up just how much effort he’d put into helping Liverpool to achieve a defining result on their path to glory, with Kopites adoring his blend of attrition and aesthetic brilliance.
Such has been the Hungarian’s magnificence of late that Slot has taken to redeploying Wirtz as a left winger, with our no.8 simply proving too good to drop from the number 10 role in the Reds’ line-up.
Dom’s recent performances have helped dig the Reds out of that slump.
This isn’t his only admirable and aspirational quality.
He’s also the team/squad player that never complains when the manager is compelled for team cohesion’s sake to make another selection of another player needing game time, even if his form is superb.
It’s that mental/emotional flexibility as well as ability that makes him LFC quality.
I wasn’t convinced when we bought him but to be fair he’s getting better all the time, his work rate and running power is second to none, he only needs to start scoring more goals to become a top midfield player. And I base this on all the great Liverpool midfielder’s that I’ve seen at Liverpool. Gerrard, souness, case, McMahon, McDermott, ect ect. Szoboszlai has been our best player by a distance this season. One more point to make though is what was the thinking in the summer in the signing of wirtz.
The first question on every Liverpool fan when we were linked with wirtz was where will he play? Who’s going to drop out of midfield to make way.
What wenger said about our midfield was correct, you cannot drop the three regular players to put wirtz in the midfield. That was proof against Real Madrid.
So, if wirtz does play you either play him wide or as a false number nine. And the last question is was it worth paying 116 million for a player who doesn’t improve anything, and was the reason we sold Diaz.