Football News

Szoboszlai concern continues

When Jurgen Klopp declared before the game he didn’t want Liverpool’s players to run the risk of red cards like Steven Gerrard in past derbies, he probably didn’t expect them to take him to heart quite so literally.

And it was the man who this season assumed the Anfield legend’s famed number eight shirt who unfortunately encapsulated the meek surrender of the Reds during the pivotal opening stages of this dire derby.

The stellar opening months to Dominik Szoboszlai’s Liverpool career had him marked out as one of the signings of the campaign, only for untimely injury to send his embryonic Reds career wildly off track.

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Rarely can the Hungarian have been as ineffective as here, offering little going forward and borderline invisible as Everton snapped into challenges to seize the early initiative.

For whatever reason, there was no semblance of fight from Szoboszlai which contributed to Liverpool being comprehensively outmuscled where it mattered in midfield – a criminal offence in a derby. Still only 23, this was a chastening experience but one from which Szoboszlai has to learn.

Alongside him, Curtis Jones toiled away to not much reward while Alexis Mac Allister became frustrated at not being able to overly affect the game from the number six position. By the time Wataru Endo’s emergence allowed him to push forward, it was far too late.

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Liverpool’s travails in front of goal continued before a ball had even been kicked at Goodison.

Having had their forward line questioned following a month in which they frittered away

Steven Gerrard Darwin Nunez Curtis Jones Alexis Mac Allister Dominik Szoboszlai Liverpool