Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai isn’t weighed down by the hasty tag of being dubbed the “next Steven Gerrard”.

The club’s current number eight shrugged: “I don’t want to be him. I want to be myself.” But there’s no doubt that Liverpool’s ultimate legend has had an impact on the young Hungarian midfielder.

A quote attributed to Gerrard is indelibly scrawled across Szoboszlai’s forearm. The tattoo reads: “Talent is a blessing from God, but without incredible will and humility, it is worthless.”

Szoboszlai has shown his abundant talent throughout his start to life on Merseyside, which stacks up very favourably with Gerrard’s own early career at his boyhood club. Here’s how the two buccaneering midfielders compare across their first 50 Liverpool games.

The first point of comparison between Szoboszlai and Gerrard is their penchant for a pot shot. Two-thirds of the Hungarian’s efforts are from outside the box, while half of his eight goals have been long-range thumps.

Gerrard would end his playing days with a rich reputation for stunning strikes, but by the same stage of his Liverpool career, the 20-year-old had only scored two senior goals, both of which came from inside the penalty box.

The skinny midfielder opened his account with a slaloming stunner against Sheffield Wednesday in December 1999. Picking the ball off Rigobert Song on the halfway line, Gerrard shimmied away from Emerson Thome before applying the same shuffle of shoulders to leave England’s star centre-back, Des Walker, stubbing his toe into the turf. Kevin Pressman had no chance of reaching Gerrard’s deft slot into the far corner.

By the end of 1999/00 campaign, Gerrard’s breakthrough season in the first team, he was already being hailed as a future great. His teammate Sami Hyypia was not alone in predicting that the youngster would be the “best player in England some day”.

Szoboszlai’s Liverpool career was barely three months old by the time he racked up a brace of assists in one game for the Reds – double the tally of goals Gerrard created across his opening 50 club appearances.

Liverpool’s forward-thinking midfielder teed up Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah during a 3-0 thrashing of Nottingham Forest in October 2023. Szoboszlai’s second assist underscored the direct approach bred into him after six years spent at three of Red Bull’s stable of clubs, blasting a 60-yard ball over the top of Forest’s scattered backline to set Salah away.

Szoboszlai finished his debut Premier League season with only two assists, but had created chances worth roughly six goals only to be let down by his teammates’ finishing. Gerrard’s measly haul of one assist was not a result of a lack of chances.

“I’ve been on the end of a lot of his passes over the last few years,” Michael Owen said in the summer of 2000, before delivering an uncharacteristically comedic line, “but fortunately none of his tackles.”

When Szoboszlai arrived at Liverpool in 2023, he told The Guardian: “I want to win everything because nobody is going to ask you how it feels to be second.” The ambitious Hungarian only managed to get his hands on the Carabao Cup during his first 50 games at the club, sitting out the final against Chelsea through injury while a glut of youngsters admirably helped the Reds win the last trophy of Jurgen Klopp’s tenure.

Gerrard’s targets at the start of his Liverpool tenure revolved around status rather than silverware. “Hopefully,” the boyhood fan said in 2000, “one day, when I’m about 30, I will captain Liverpool.” Gerrard was only 23 – the same age as Szoboszlai – when he was permanently handed the armband.

Liverpool were enduring their longest trophy drought since the early 1970s when Gerrard burst into the team. The prodigy failed to earn any pots or trinkets across his first half-century of appearances but would end the 2000/01 campaign with a treble of both domestic cup competitions and the UEFA Cup.

Just as Szoboszlai has been dubbed the “new Gerrard”, his legendary predeccesor was hailed as the next Graeme Souness. The future club icon certainly had the Scot’s nasty streak and was repeatedly told to “calm down” during training. “I was going out to kill them,” Gerrard said at the time, with only a whisper of a grin.

Szoboszlai doesn’t have the same edge as Gerrard – he has only picked up three yellow cards – and is proud of his unique playing identity. But if the opportunity to replicate the impact of an icon presented itself, he would have to accept it. “If they put a paper in front of me and say you’re going to have the same career here in Liverpool, I’m going to sign it directly,” Szoboszlai laughed to the BBC. So far, he’s already ahead of Gerrard.

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