Dominik Szoboszlai’s Withering Conference League Jibe Wasn’t the Worst Thing He Said

Arne Slot identified one glaring issue for Liverpool this season which seemed to miss the point.

Dominik Szoboszlai struck a defeatist tone on Sunday. | Sky Sports YouTube/Robbie Jay Barratt-AMA/Getty Images

While most of the attention has understandably centered around Dominik Szoboszlai’s brutally honest admission that Liverpool “should be happy with the Conference League” playing at their current, underwhelming level, his blunt lack of solutions should be even more concerning.

Szoboszlai slumped through his postmatch interview, this buccaneering contender for the player of the season reduced to a hollow husk by the nature of Liverpool’s 1–1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday afternoon.

The Hungary international had blasted the hosts into a first-half lead with his fourth free kick of the Premier League season—the most any Liverpool player has ever amassed in the competition’s history—yet was helpless as his side sleepwalked towards more dropped points secured by Richarlison’s 90th-minute equalizer.

“I feel flat,” Szoboszlai told Sky Sports, barely raising his voice above a whisper. “We have to wake up because if we carry on like this, we should be happy with the Conference League.”

Asked for an explanation behind this painfully familiar collapse—it was the eighth goal Liverpool have conceded in the 90th minute or later this season—Szoboszlai delivered a concerning response: “I don’t know why this is happening, I honestly don’t know.

“I think in the first half we played very well, we controlled the whole game and they hardly created chances apart from one or two headers. Second half we just didn’t so the same things.”

There was undoubtedly a sense of complacency permeating through Liverpool’s team after Szoboszlai’s 18th-minute opener. Between that free kick and Richarlison’s scruffy equalizer, Tottenham took twice as many shots on target as their hosts (six to three). However, Arne Slot was more concerned with his team’s accuracy than their attitude.

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Arne Slot Identifies Liverpool’s Problem

Arne Slot is struggling. | Liverpool FC/Getty Images

Amid the familiar set-piece fretting and an unhelpfully vague diagnosis of “in general, we’ve conceded far too many goals,” Slot honed in on Liverpool’s perceived finishing issue.

“I think we are completely underperforming in terms of the chances we create and the amount of goals we score,” the Dutch boss claimed. “That’s quite a surprise if you look at how much attacking quality we have.

“If you’re not able to score enough, then you have to be able to keep a clean sheet, and that’s something we find really hard this season.”

Liverpool have racked up 49 Premier League goals this season from an expected goals (xG) of 50.0, per FotMob. That one-goal difference which Slot has bemoaned is almost exactly the Premier League average. Ten teams have a larger negative differential between their xG and actual goals scored, while nine different sides have been more efficient than Liverpool this season.

It’s not as if the club’s Premier League triumph last term was underpinned by an absurd finishing hot streak: Liverpool scored 86 goals from an xG of 83.5. Yet again, nine clubs out-performed their predicted goal tally by a larger margin than the Reds.

This perceived finishing slump may have emerged from the nature of chances which Liverpool have missed. Opta define a “big chance” as “a situation where a player is reasonably expected to score” and it’s these types of opportunities which Slot has seen his side squander.

Liverpool have converted 32% of their “big chances” this season—only three clubs in the division have a lower rate of success from these glaring openings. Last term, by comparison, the Reds ranked seventh in the league for big-chance conversion rate.

While this wastefulness is one issue, Slot may be advised to also worry about why Liverpool are consistently creating fewer chances to waste.

Statistic	2024–25 (League Rank)	2025–26 (League Rank)
Big Chances Created	150 (1st)	81 (6th)
Big Chances Missed	92 (1st)	55 (4th)
Big Chances Conversion Rate	38.7% (7th)	32.1% (17th)

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