Dominik Szoboszlai is hoping to recapture the form that saw the start of his Liverpool career last season especially in the Premier League take off impressively.
The no.8 who said he was eager to start again after a proper summer break, has already shown glimpses of getting back to his best. And with Arne Slot now in charge as the new head coach, the midfielder is working even harder to adapt to the gaffer’s style and ideas.
Szoboszlai started the opening match of the season in the 2-0 win at Ipswich Town as the most advanced midfielder as a no.10, playing ahead of Alexis MacAllister (in the no.8 position) and Ryan Gravenberch playing in the no.6 role. The man himself was happy with his performance but remained confident that, he can even be better.
Reflecting after the early kick-off victory in Norfolk, the Hungarian captain said, ”We’re happy with the 3 points, and what we learned from it is to be ready from the first minute but in the second half we showed a good reaction and scored an early goal with Jota and one more from Mo [Salah] so we’re happy to take the three points, but also we have to learn from this.”
Ipswich Town was determined not to be pushovers, especially in the first half when they created some good chances albeit not enough to trouble Allison in goal. Omari Hutchinson on a couple of occasions had shots at the Reds’ goal but there was little in them to force the Liverpool goalkeeper into serious action.
Szoboazlai felt their slow start to the match gave the host some confidence whilst their supporters were also up for the occasion at Portman Road. However, their approach to the second half was enough to take the steam out of the host.
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“We would always like to be intense and always have the ball and to play forward and let them [Ipswich Town] run, but it didn’t always work, so that is something we must work on. In the second half we mostly controlled the game, we had chances, and we were intense with winning the balls and that was what we had to do from the beginning”, he told liverpoolfc.com.
He continued, “We played differently [to Klopp’s style] a little bit because we used to play with one 6 and two 8s with one of the 8s dropping to play as a 6 sometimes, but now we play with one 6, one 8, and one 10 and I have the role of the no.10 but still sometimes I can drop, sometimes I can stay up. I think I now have more offensive work with the ball, but without the ball, I still must do my stuff anyway.”
The 24-year-old also shared thoughts on how he and his teammates are adapting to their new coaching staff at AXA training center. He said, “We had quite a long preseason but not all the guys were there, so we need time until we come together and know each other in this system. Last year we showed that we knew each other, but now it’s a bit of a different system and style of play, but with time we will get to know each other.”
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