Who is Liverpool's new midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai?

With the completion of Dominik Szoboszlai's move to Liverpool from RB Leipzig, Matt Furniss of Opta Analyst looks at what to expect from a player described as one of the most outstanding young talents from the Bundesliga. 

Dominik Szoboszlai (Liverpool)

Back in November 2021, Hungarian football expert Tom Mortimer profiled Szoboszlai for Opta Analyst after his first year at Leipzig, with a particular focus on how he’d progressed as far as he had and the story behind his early success.

At that stage, Szoboszlai had only played 728 minutes of competitive action for the German club across 13 matches.

The start of his career in the Bundesliga had been severely hindered by a groin injury that had kept him out of action for the five months at the end of 2020/21, after he had signed from fellow Red Bull group side RB Salzburg in December 2020.

Injury free

Those fitness woes didn't return for Leipzig and Szoboszlai, who would miss only one match through injury across the last two Bundesliga seasons.

Overall, of the possible 9,180 minutes that Szoboszlai could have played for Leipzig over that time in all competitions, he spent 64 per cent of those on the pitch (5,832).

Only Willi Orban, Christopher Nkunku (now of Chelsea) and Josko Gvardiol had more playing time for the club during this period.

In the Bundesliga, Szoboszlai was one of only 14 players to have created at least 100 chances for team-mates since the start of 2021/22, but of those players he had the fifth highest per 90 average (2.5).

Last season saw Szoboszlai find a more regular position in Leipzig’s side, with 77 per cent of his playing time coming as a right-sided winger.

That was a shift from 2021/22, where he played most of his minutes as a left-winger (potentially to utilise his fantastic ball-striking qualities, allowing him to cut in on his preferred right foot) and in central midfield.

Those two positions making up 60 per cent of his playing minutes in the Bundesliga, with just 17 per cent as a right winger.

Szoboszlai's positions

Open-play threat

While used mainly in that right-wing role at Leipzig last season, Szoboszlai tallied the fifth-highest Expected Goals (xG) assisted figure in the Bundesliga (7.72), which was better than any other team-mate across the season (David Raum’s 4.48, the next highest).

Indeed, 77 per cent of his xG assisted total came from open play in 2022/23 (5.97), considering the hype around his danger from set-piece situations. That’s not to say the hype isn’t justified, but more to show how dangerous he can be in open play too.

Szoboszlai led the Leipzig rankings across each of the last two Bundesliga seasons for open-play attacking sequence involvements, although his 6.0 per 90 average last season was slightly above his involvement rate in 2021/22 (5.4).

In fact, 2022/23 saw him rank fourth overall in the German top flight for total involvements in shot-ending sequences in open play (163). Interestingly, he had a more equal split between having the shot (49) and being the creator for a shot (48), than any other player in the top 10.

Attacking sequence involvements 2022/23*

*red = shot; purple = chance created; white = build up to shot

Chance creator

Not only was he prevalent in shooting and creating shots for team-mates, Szoboszlai led the Bundesliga for secondary chances created – the pass to the player who creates a chance – with 41, showing his importance in the build-up to Leipzig shots and an element of his game that many fans might underestimate.

It’s also interesting to note that Szoboszlai led the 2022/23 Bundesliga charts for having multiple involvements (being involved in both the build-up to and either the shot itself or the chance creation of a shot) in an open-play shot.

He was involved in 29 such instances (15 shots, 14 chances created), four more than the next highest, Serge Gnabry at Bayern Munich (25).

His quick feet also saw him take seven shots that followed a one-two with a team-mate – only four players had more, with three of those at Bayern (Gnabry, Leroy Sane and Jamal Musiala).

Despite his 6ft 1in frame, Szoboszlai is a good carrier of the ball, too. Across attacking players in the Bundesliga last season, only four players made more ball carries or travelled further with the ball from carries than he did (384 carries over 4,403m).

Despite this, he’s not a player that will look to take on players with regularity. True, he was one of 22 players to tally 100+ take-ons in the 2022/23 Bundesliga, but only three of those averaged fewer on a per-90 basis than Szoboszlai (3.9).

His take-on numbers are nearly half that of players like Alphonso Davies (6.6/90), Kingsley Coman (6.5), and Borussia Dortmund pair Donyell Malen (6.5) and Karim Adeyemi (6.4).

With his ability to shoot from range – only Bayern’s Sane (37) had more shots from outside the box than his 36 in the 2022/23 Bundesliga – and his prolific creative numbers, his team-mates looked to supply him at every opportunity.

Joshua Kimmich (992) was the only player that received more open-play passes in the opposition half across the 2022/23 Bundesliga season than the Hungarian midfielder (850), and his 31.2 open-play passes received per 90 average was more than any player at Leipzig.

Szoboszlai is also a player with a high work rate, with his average sprint per-90 figure 11th highest of the 106 outfield players to play at least 2,000 Bundesliga minutes last season (31.7), while his average distance covered/90 (10.8km) is also in the top half of that group.

That’s helpful when playing for a team that likes to win possession further up the pitch. Only the Bundesliga’s top two sides Bayern (382) and Dortmund (314) made more high turnovers in the Bundesliga in 2022/23 than Leipzig (298).

Forty-six of those ended in a shot, which was only behind Bayern’s total of 73 in the German top flight last season.

Szoboszlai's high turnovers 2022/23

Szoboszlai was a big part of winning possession back in those areas (within 40m of the opposition goal), with 39 high turnovers in total – the most of any Leipzig player and the sixth highest in the entire league.

Only three players contributed more high turnovers that led to shots than Szoboszlai (eight), with the midfielder again leading the way for his club. Overall, only Bayern’s Kimmich (53) started more open-play sequences that eventually led to a shot than Szoboszlai at Leipzig (37) across 2022/23.

For a quick, digestible way to understand how Szoboszlai played across the 2022/23 Bundesliga season, we can use the new Opta Player Radars and their similarity score between players from any top five European league season over the last 15 years.

Last season, the Hungarian had the closest similarity score to James Maddison at Leicester City in 2019/20 (94 per cent similarity) – just the second season of top-flight football that the England international had played and one in which he was among the top five players for shot involvements in the Premier League (153 in total).

This was behind only Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah, Raul Jimenez and Jack Grealish. Essentially, Maddison was a creative force who would pepper the opposition goal with shots on a frequent basis.

Szoboszlai departs having scored in the 2023 DFB-Pokal final against Eintracht Frankfurt – capping off the 2-0 victory with the second goal in the 85th minute - and having made a big impact in Germany.

This article originates from Opta Analyst.