Where Dominik Szoboszlai will play for Liverpool: Shapeshifting set-piece specialist is £60m very well spent by Jurgen Klopp

Szoboszlai is a shapeshifter. As such, nailing down his 'strongest' position is a difficult task. Right from the moment he joined Red Bull Salzburg - and even before that - Szoboszlai has been used in a string of different positions for club and country.

For the most part, this trend has continued since his move to Leipzig in 2021. During his first season in Germany, he played just over 1,500 minutes in the Bundesliga, with 32 percent of those coming as a left forward and 28% coming as a centre midfielder. He was also used as a striker and right forward during the same campaign.

For the first time in his club career, Szoboszlai seemed to find a permanent home on the pitch last season. In just under 2,500 league minutes - only defender Willi Orban registered more - he spent the vast majority of his time (77%) operating as a right-sided attacking midfielder in Marco Rose's 4-2-2-2, only sporadically appearing on the opposite flank.

For Hungary, it was a different story, with Szoboszlai being used as a left-sided advanced midfielder in a 3-4-3. To possess such an extreme level of versatility at such a tender age speaks to his maturity and tactical intelligence.

On occasion it has felt that the size of Szoboszlai's footballing brain has been underappreciated. This is partly self-inflicted, as the first thing that comes to mind with the 22 year old is his box-office, long-range shooting - a far more headline-grabbing trait than the ability to play in multiple positions.

Szoboszlai's technique when striking the ball from range is quite extraordinary. Like an Olympic sprinter, there's no wasted movement. He simply cocks his leg back ever so slightly and fizzes it through the ball.

This makes it frighteningly hard to predict when he's going to unleash his latest thunderbolt - as Borussia Dortmund discovered to their peril back in October. Having already assisted Orban for the opener, Szoboszlai was afforded a little too much space outside the box on the stroke of half-time and took full advantage.

Without overtly signalling his intentions, the Leipzig No.17 unleashed a swerving effort into the top corner to make it 2-0. It was the latest installment in an ever-growing highlight reel of 30-yard screamers, with the angles that he can squeeze shots in from consistently defying logic.

Don't be surprised to see Szoboszlai capture the Premier League Goal of the Season prize in 2023-24...

Szoboszlai's penchant for the audacious extends to his set-piece taking too. According to Transfermarkt, he has scored eight direct free-kicks during his club career so far, as well as a further three for his country and plenty more at youth level.

His success in this field in born out of a childhood obsession. In a recent interview with The Athletic, Szoboszlai confessed to taking about 200 free-kicks every day in his younger years, eventually discovering the ideal technique for himself without any external interference.

These methods may have been demanding, but he is reaping the rewards in the present day. What is so impressive about Szoboszlai''s dead-ball delivery is his variation. Like a top-class bowler keeping a tail-end batsman in a state of fear, the pace, curve and placement of his efforts can be wildly different, making it difficult for goalkeepers to prepare to face him.

Szoboszlai is also an accomplished penalty taker, although interestingly, unlike his free-kicks, these are consistent. He almost always aims for the bottom left corner and he almost always finds it, missing just one spot kick during his career thus far.

His set-pieces can be a potent creative weapon too, with that ability to vary his deliveries coming into play when he's taking corners. It will be interesting to see how free-kicks, corners and penalties are distributed this season at Anfield, with Szoboszlai adding to the Reds' already fearsome group of dead-ball specialists.

While Szoboszlai is among the world's best set-piece takers, his creativity does not solely stem from his dead-ball threat. In fact, last season no Bundesliga player averaged more shot-creating actions (the two offensive actions leading to a shot, such as passes and take-ons) per 90 minutes. You don't achieve that by solely taking corners and free-kicks.

Extrapolate those statistics out to the rest of Europe and Szoboszlai stacks up very favourably indeed. Only nine players in the continent's top five leagues registered better SCA per 90 minutes numbers last season, with Lionel Messi, Kevin De Bruyne and Bruno Fernandes among the group that beat him. And just like with his goal-scoring, Szoboszlai is a fan of assisting his team-mates in some style.

He set the tone for this Hollywood passing early in his Bundesliga career. Indeed, his maiden assist in the league should have been an ingenious, driven free-kick. However, Mohamed Simakan just failed to make contact with a glancing header - so it went down as a Szoboszlai goal instead.

He'd deliver an even better assist in a 4-1 win against Greuther Furth a few weeks later. There was something De Bruyne-esque about the way he weighted his outside-the-foot pass to the back post perfectly, allowing Hugo Novoa to slide home unopposed and put the result beyond all doubt.

The seconds leading up to that trivela assist offer an insight into another of Szoboszlai's strengths: his imperious ball carrying. Prior to finding Novoa, he left Greuther Furth right-back Marco Meyerhofer for dead, creating acres of space to burst into thanks to his delicious first touch. And once he'd slipped away and got up to top speed, there was simply no catching him.

Last season, Szoboszlai averaged a progressive carrying distance of well over 100 yards per 90 minutes, one of the best rates for a Bundesliga player in his position. There is a feeling that Szoboszlai could get even better in this regard, too.

While he has little issue beating a player if he absolutely has to, do not expect him to be taking on players constantly. Due to this, he limits his turnovers of possession, which helps explain why his coaches have been so comfortable deploying him in central midfield in the past.

For all of his clear promise in an attacking sense, there have always been some doubts over Szoboszlai's work off the ball. This area of his game has sharply improved recently, though, with Rose's arrival at Leipzig no doubt playing a role in this.

As a result, meeting Klopp's high standards out of possession should not be an issue for Szoboszlai. As per Opta, only 10 Bundesliga outfielders who played 2,000 minutes or more averaged more sprints per 90 minutes than him last season.

Szoboszlai is not headless in his approach to pressing either, recording 39 turnovers in the opposition's third during 2022-23. All of this paints the picture of a player who understood his defensive duties last term and carried them out diligently. It's another sign of the maturity that is so impressive about Szoboszlai.

So, in terms of his profile, it's clear that Szoboszlai is a typically-Klopp player. Not only is he able to perform in a high press, his versatility means he's comfortable creating and scoring all over the pitch - perfect for when the game gets frenetic, as it often does at Liverpool.

What exact role does the German have in mind for his new signing, though? Well, although he had seemed to have nailed down that right-sided position at Leipzig last season, he isn't going to be usurping Mohamed Salah in the first team any time soon.

What seems far more likely is Szoboszlai slotting into the right-sided central midfield position that Jordan Henderson played to decent effect towards the end of last season. After months of tactical inflexibility, Klopp finally relented and tinkered slightly with his set-up around April.

At the time, the majority of the analysis focused on how Trent Alexander-Arnold had been afforded the freedom to slot into midfield while the Reds had the ball, something Joao Cancelo and Rico Lewis also did at Manchester City last season. The knock-on effects of this alteration meant that Liverpool shaped up in a 3-2-5 in possession, with the shuttling midfielders either side of Fabinho joining the frontline in an attempt to create overloads in the final third.

This tactical change instigated a stunning seven-game winning run in the Premier League - and the prospect of Szoboszlai replacing Henderson in this set-up is extremely exciting.

The latter has been an outstanding servant, but can no longer beat players, create chances and score from distance like his likely replacement can. With Szoboszlai added into the mix, Luis Diaz returning from injury and Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo coming into the campaign with points to prove, the Reds are surely destined to rediscover their attacking mojo.

On paper then, it seems like an almost perfect fit. Yet, even the most optimistic Liverpool fans will find it difficult to shake the niggling feeling of doubt in the back of their minds. They've been burned before by a similar signing - badly too.

Naby Keita arrived from Leipzig amid an even bigger wave of hype in 2018. Much like with Szoboszlai, he seemed to be a ready-made Klopp-ian star, only for injuries and poor form to condemn him to an unceremonious departure on a free transfer at the end of last season.

Further away from home, other Premier League teams have been left short-changed after investing heavily in Bundesliga breakout stars. Jadon Sancho, Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic have all struggled to justify their hefty price tags since heading over from Germany, proving that not every player is destined for Erling Haaland levels of success.

Doubts like this are natural, but before Szoboszlai makes his Premier League bow the only way of judging him is on his body of work so far. And, in this sense, most of the data points to the conclusion that he is going to be a roaring success for Klopp's new-look Liverpool. It's likely to prove to be £60m very well spent.