Dominik Szoboszlai is not the first Liverpool player to polarise supporters, and he certainly won’t be the last…
‘ARROGANT PRICK’.
NOT MY words, but that of the 30-something-fella sat behind me last week in The Kop after Liverpool’s 0-0 draw against Fulham.
The target of his screaming indictment was Dominik Szoboszlai. His crime was merely being ponderous on the ball. It wasn’t exactly a Djimi Traore at Burnley moment.
Szoboszlai doesn’t have to be at the scene of crimes on the pitch. Many take offence simply at how he stands, how he runs and who he passes to. There is indignation at his Instagram profile, his goal celebrations and his demeanour in interviews.
The Hungarian seems to have adopted a sense of pantomime villain with the issue. He offers the air of someone who sees us mere mortals as incapable of comprehending his sporting intelligence. Someone who knows he’s operating on an elevated level.
I’m speculating, but if that’s even partly true, could you blame him? With constant questions and assumptions of character made alongside the wealth and lifestyle gap which exists between footballers and supporters, perhaps the sense of unrelatability we feel works both ways.
What I’m trying to say is that it probably doesn’t serve Szoboszlai or any elite footballer to listen to the noise around them. We just never like to see ourselves as part of said noise.
At his heart, you can’t really fault his values, at least not the ones we know. He constantly talks about how Liverpool must aspire to be better. We must work harder. We have to get back to the top. He wants to win trophies at Liverpool, something we’re all in agreement on.
On the pitch, his application is mostly commendable. He’s given his all in every position he’s played, despite being open about his dislike of fullback. He’s also a spectacular matchwinner, as we were reminded again in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup win over Tottenham.
Yet the marmalade nature of Szoboszlai, player and personality, persists. For all his apparent leadership qualities, people seem to think he has none. In fact, he’s the antithesis of what leadership is in the eyes of many.
As a player, he’s simultaneously all and no action. His numbers tell this story perfectly. Although he ranks highly this Premier League season for things like pressure regains (97th percentile) and xG assisted (98th percentile), his passing percentage (27th percentile), dribble success (33rd percentile) and turnovers (34th percentile) leave him lagging behind other midfielders.
You’re left with a messy conclusion that Szoboszlai rubs people up the wrong way because he isn’t complete enough to justify a perceived sense of self-importance.
In his recent interview with Steven Gerrard, the two seemed to have more tension than an episode of Rivals. Two big personalities were passively competing for the same space. When Szoboszlai mentioned he’d play 10 with Gerrard at right-back, Steven’s quiet withdrawal from the topic suggested he’d wandered off into the thought of coming up against his counterpart in a 50/50 on the pitch and getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about the outcome.
By comparison, Gerrard was that good. He was the best right-back, central midfielder or number 10 on the pitch at Szoboszlai’s age. He was the game’s defining force wherever you put him.
When Gerrard was wrangling with the concept of joining Chelsea under Jose Mourinho, he would often be accused of similar personality traits and, at times, play up to the mantle.
When he rifled a free-kick in off the post at home to Portsmouth in 2004, Gerrard ran towards The Kop digging a finger into his chest screaming ‘I’m the fucking man’. I hated it. It grappled with the concept of nobody being bigger than Liverpool to me, yet here was this fella telling me he was calling all the shots.
In loads of ways, because he went on to continue to captain Liverpool for a career, because of Istanbul in 2005 and Cardiff in 2006, he was right. He was the fucking man in a sea of very average men and some other good ones. Gerrard maritally committed himself to Liverpool and when biology caught up, he settled into his decision. He became grateful for what he had.
Szoboszlai is on a journey. He’s a player with faults but some tremendous attributes. He’s also a 25-year-old millionaire seemingly enjoying his life. He’s allowed to because this is the price of entry we’ve all agreed to in modern day football.
Yet we seemingly pine for him to be something different. A bit more likeable on and off the pitch without exactly elaborating how or what we’d change. Attributes and personality traits shouldn’t be scored in the same way. We can want him to press better, but can we really accuse him of not giving a shit if a company controlling his Instagram shares a promotional post after a Liverpool defeat?
I personally think the confidence he has in himself is fine. Mohamed Salah had it in a different way. So did a young Robbie Fowler and Gerrard.
Szoboszlai isn’t a unique case. We can’t control the humility of these wealthy, unrelatable young men we’ve agreed to the creation of.
We simply need to accept him and work together on our agreed objectives of making Liverpool a coming force once again.
