Dominik Szoboszlai sent Liverpool top of the Premier League with a stunning free-kick against Arsenal and admitted he would not have taken the set piece had Trent Alexander-Arnold stayed at Anfield.
The Liverpool midfielder maintained the champions’ 100% start to their title defence with the late “moment of magic” that Arne Slot said a boring game desperately needed.
Szoboszlai has displayed his free‑kick prowess on the international stage with Hungary but was behind Alexander-Arnold on Liverpool’s list of takers before the defender’s departure to Real Madrid. He seized his opportunity from 30 yards against the Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya, who claimed the new Puma ball being used in the Premier League this season had deceived him.
Szoboszlai said: “I was confident in myself, I tried it. I should mention Trent because he was taking the free-kicks in the past. Finally I could have my chance and I did it. I had to take a risk and shoot a little bit harder because I knew Raya likes to jump behind the ball. He’s an unbelievable goalkeeper. If it goes a bit more inside he saves it.”
Raya credited the Hungary captain with “a hell of a strike” but also cited the new match ball as a factor in Arsenal dropping points for the first time this season. “I remember the ball moving a lot and moving away from me,” the keeper said.
“It’s different to the Nike ball so we have to adapt to it. The grip is different, the kick is different. We just have to adapt after playing with the Nike ball for many years. It’s the same for everybody.”
Mikel Arteta defended his approach and argued Arsenal were the dominant side, despite creating few chances. The manager started Mikel Merino in place of Martin Ødegaard, who had not trained all week because of a shoulder problem, and left the new £67.5m signing Eberechi Eze on the bench until the 70th minute.
“We didn’t do our game plan to frustrate them, we did it to win the game,” Arteta insisted.
“I think we elevated the game and the dominance to a point that they had to raise their game. They did. Then you could see that there were no margins in the game and when that happens the game is going to be decided in two ways. One, with an individual error or two, with a magic moment. They created a moment that was incredible. That has won the game and that was the difference, nothing else.”
William Saliba had to be substituted after only five minutes as he joined Arsenal’s lengthy injury list. Arteta said: “He twisted his ankle during the warm-up. He said he believed that he could carry on and play but he suffered in the first two actions. I could see that he couldn’t cope and we had to get him out, unfortunately. But thank God we have [Cristhian] Mosquera, who we put in for the first time in the Premier League, his debut, not expecting it at Anfield, and he was really, really good.”
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Slot praised his Liverpool team’s mentality and defensive display as the champions kept their first clean sheet of the campaign. Ibrahima Konaté and Florian Wirtz hobbled off late on but the head coach hopes both were experiencing cramp.
“It wasn’t an injury, it was a welcome to the Premier League,” Slot said of £100m summer signing Wirtz. “After 85 minutes I don’t think he knew he could have cramp in so many different places and that’s what happened. That is welcome to the Premier League, welcome to playing in this intensity against an Arsenal team that can play really intense as well. That is normal if you bring in very good players, so talented, but from different leagues and young … 22 for him, 23 for Hugo [Ekitiké].
“It’s normal if you are not 27 then maybe you need to make a step towards the Premier League and that’s what these two are doing. In the meantime, we have nine points in games where we picked up five points last season. That is a positive but we can do better. The positive is some people thought we were too open against Bournemouth but you can’t say we were too open today.”
