Szoboszlai is Liverpool’s star man – but he also shows what they are missing

By the time Dominik Szoboszlai shaped to deliver the 97th-minute cross that would decide the game at the City Ground, every Liverpool supporter within reach of a television seemed to be screaming the same instruction: get it into the box. The Hungarian ignored them. A shimmy left, a drop of the shoulder right, a moment’s pause, and only then did he arrow the ball toward the six-yard area for the decisive strike. The move sealed a 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest and preserved Arne Slot’s side’s momentum, yet it also underlined a problem the manager can no longer ignore: Szoboszlai is increasingly a one-man answer to questions Liverpool should not still be asking.

Jamie Carragher, on duty for Sky Sports, labelled the sequence “football arrogance”, the type born of a player who believes he is the most gifted on the pitch and is prepared to back that conviction. “That comes from confidence, arrogance,” Carragher said. It is a trait Slot would love to see replicated across the squad, because for 90 minutes Liverpool had again looked a step short of the intensity that once defined them.

Forest, playing for their fourth head coach of the campaign in Vitor Pereira, spent the first half pressing with a ferocity that startled the visitors. They regained possession seven times in Liverpool’s defensive third before the break, a figure bettered only once in the league this season. Ibrahim Sangare snapped into tackles, Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White threaded passes through lines, and for long spells Liverpool’s build-up lacked both pace and purpose.

Szoboszlai, stationed at right-back to cover for injuries, was the exception, covering more distance and completing more sprints than any team-mate. When Curtis Jones struggled in midfield – “he takes too long on the ball,” Carragher noted – Slot shifted the Hungarian into the centre in search of control. Szoboszlai finished the contest having created five chances; the rest of the side combined for three.

The numbers illustrate both his influence and the imbalance. Liverpool’s coaching staff are acutely aware that the squad’s physical output drops sharply when the 23-year-old is not involved, a reality that has forced Slot to shuttle his most dynamic performer between positions rather than build a platform around him. “We face players of … different physicality,” the manager admitted afterwards, a diplomatic way of saying too many colleagues are operating at a lesser tempo.

Not that Forest can take sustained consolation from their early superiority. Pereira’s front-foot approach waned after the interval as legs tired and the block dropped deeper. The Portuguese spoke of “very good football with the ball, switching play, creating problems”, yet accepted the second-half dip was inevitable once the high press could not be maintained. Whether such intensity is sustainable across a season that could yet include European fixtures remains doubtful, but the glimpse of potential was a welcome departure from the more conservative fare that preceded his arrival.

For Liverpool, the late winner papers over issues that will resurface unless addressed. Szoboszlai’s brilliance is no longer a bonus; it is a lifeline. Slot knows he needs more athletes who can marry technique with relentless running, more teammates unwilling to accept the easy pass. On the training pitch they have the template. The task now is to clone it.