Dominik Szoboszlai just did what no Jürgen Klopp midfielder has done before at Liverpool

Szoboszlai has proving that the Reds have a new marathon man on their hands this year.

Three Liverpool players have played every minute across the club’s first five Premier League fixtures of the new season, and two of the names are unsurprising.

The first Is goalkeeper Alisson, who’s likely to be ever-present in the competition barring any injuries, and the second is first-choice left-back Andy Robertson.

The third, however, might raise eyebrows — brand-new signing Dominik Szoboszlai. The $77m (£60m/€70m) may still be adapting to his new surroundings, but there’s been no sign of caution from manager Jürgen Klopp.
Szoboszlai is even ahead of Mohamed Salah for minutes played after the talismanic Egyptian was withdrawn on the opening day against Chelsea, much to his chagrin.

If you look back across the whole of the German’s tenure, Szoboszlai is one of only seven players to have completed the full 90 minutes in each of his first five Premier League appearances after arriving, along with Robertson, Joël Matip, Ragnar Klavan, Virgil van Dijk, Ozan Kabak and Ibrahima Konaté.

As you can see, every other player on the list is a defender, and that’s not surprising, because it’s pretty rare for a manager to make a substitution in this area barring an injury. Szoboszlai, then, is the first midfielder or attacker signed by Klopp to achieve this feat, in his ninth season at the helm.

Why, then, is the 22-year-old playing so much football at such an early stage? Well, there are multiple reasons, perhaps above all his performance levels. If you were to conduct a far-too-early vote on Liverpool’s player of the season so far, Szoboszlai would likely win out. Klopp will already regard him as a difference-maker, and so he’ll want him on the pitch, especially when the game isn’t already settled (and Liverpool has gone to the wire in four of its five matches so far, if you include the 10 vs 11 clash with Bournemouth).
Another key point is his versatility. Szoboszlai is capable of operating, and thriving, in multiple roles and has already excelled as an advanced number eight and a surprise number six for Liverpool. Klopp will often reshuffle his line-up late in games and adopt unique shapes, but his record midfield signing can adapt to them. It won’t be long before we see him on the right wing, a position he played at RB Leipzig.

We should also acknowledge his incredible energy levels. Szoboszlai was sold as a marathon man when he joined the club and he’s lived up to that billing, covering the furthest distance of any Liverpool player and the sixth-highest of any player in the Premier League, behind Spurs’ Dejan Kulusevski, Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes, Bournemouth’s Philip Billing, West Ham’s Declan Rice and Manchester City’s Rodri.

A feature of his early games has been his unrelenting willingness to chase back and help the back four, which has prompted Klopp to dub him a ‘machine’. He really does seem to possess an endless battery (via Mirror).

The Liverpool manager has chosen to ease many of his new players in before, but there aren’t any grounds for delay in the case of Szoboszlai, who’s already made himself too valuable and too important.