Who would you have in your Liverpool team, Steven Gerrard or Dominik Szoboszlai? It’s a daft question, really, and insulting to some, but revealing nonetheless.
For Liverpool lifers the question offends. I get it. Gerrard The Indefatigable is untouchable; a leader and a legend, hero of Istanbul and, most significantly of all, a Scouser. It is also devilishly difficult to compare across the eras with so many variables to consider.
Yet so much of our enjoyment of the game is spent deliberating just this kind of abstraction, distilling the greats, past and present, in search of the perfect baller. And Gerrard is obviously a fan of the modern day No 8.
“I like his mentality. He’s evolved, and he’s grown a lot since he’s become a Liverpool player,” Gerrard said on TNT Sports after Liverpool’s win over Galatasaray.
“The way he’s playing and his consistency and his mentality, you can hear it in his voice. He’s straight on to the next game, talking about Brighton. I love that about him. He’s got everything going for him. He’s just got to maintain it and stay healthy.”
“I don’t really care when I’m scoring or how I’m scoring. I just want to help the team”
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 18, 2026
Dominik Szoboszlai on his important goals this season
@tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/amzx4ytyYZ
Gerrard was on comms duty with former Liverpool team-mate Steve McManaman, who fired a few fawning questions at Szoboszlai. If only the discussion had moved back to Gerrard and “Macca” had asked the question I am posing here, he might have received a response worth the listen.
I put the question to an Anfield season-ticket holder during the game. He shot back his vote for Gerrard. “The G-man did it season on season. Maybe if ‘Szob’ does it for a few more… but he is fantastic.”
The view was echoed by my neighbour, another life-long Liverpool supporter. The answer was automatic, the kind of appreciation triggered by countless match-winning displays in the service of one of the world’s most garlanded clubs. “Gerrard, no question,” he said, until I offered a counter perspective.
“Well, if you put it like that…”
This was my case. Gerrard was from a very English mould, powerful, aggressive, urgent in the tackle, would run all day and would evince from his team-mates the extra five per cent that makes a team greater than the sum of its parts. The goals were spectacular, net busters from all distances and angles, clean, angry strikes.
Szoboszlai’s power is in his technique and flair. He attacks space at pace, drives forward just as Gerrard did but with deft feet and subtlety. Gerrard swung an axe, Szoboszlai is playing lead violin.
Yet the highlights reel is equally as explosive as Gerrard’s, the ball flying into the net from distance, preferably, like Gerrard, off the right peg, but also the left as he showed against Galatasaray with a goal that changed the trajectory of the Champions League tie and possibly Liverpool’s season.
Three days prior Sky’s foremost Anfield cheerleader, Jamie Carragher, was pouring out his distress following the home draw against Spurs in which Liverpool capped an awful performance by conceding an equaliser in added time.
Interestingly it was Szoboszlai who answered for the team, despite scoring Liverpool’s only goal in a display that fell below the standard required. The “we have to be better” response he urged was immediate, Liverpool aglow under lights during a rampant second half on Wednesday night.
Though a Champions League winner on that unforgettable night in Istanbul, where he inspired the Homeric recovery against AC Milan after falling 3-0 behind at half time, Gerrard ended his career without a Premier League winners’ medal.
At the heart of a settled midfield alongside Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch, Szoboszlai was arguably the jewel of Liverpool’s title stroll last term. Were he deployed consistently in the same part of the pitch, Liverpool’s season might have taken a more settled course this year.
That is a rabbit hole for another day. It is enough to acknowledge the talismanic quality of Szoboszlai that has the same transformational effect on those around him that Gerrard had. Even Mo Salah looked like his old self in the second half, popping his 50th Champions League goal.
The assist came from Florian Wirtz, but Szoboszlai was the first to wrap his arms around Salah, symbolic of his centrality to Liverpool’s best work. That’s why, at the risk of bringing the Anfield diaspora to my door, I would argue that Szoboszlai has the potential to rise even higher, and why, fractionally, I would pick him over Gerrard. Sorry Stevie.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/UIdtzmD
Post a Comment