Dominik Szoboszlai was quick to highlight the impact of Lewis Koumas and James McConnell after Liverpool\u2019s 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday evening, insisting the pair have shown enough to earn more opportunities in the first team.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s incoming manager made 10 changes from the side that had laboured in a goalless draw with Fulham on Saturday, with Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Bradley Barcola all rested. That trio has cost more than $490 million over the past year, underlining the scale of the squad available and the significance of the younger players\u2019 contribution.<\/p>\n
Koumas and McConnell started as the energetic central pair in a 4-2-3-1 and delivered exactly the kind of work off the ball that has been demanded during this transition period. Szoboszlai was effusive when asked about them by Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey both did a really good job,\u201d Szoboszlai gushed to Sky Sports after the 2\u20131 win. \u201cKoumas with his timing and McConnell with his running ability. Both of them deserve to play. They both played very well. And now they will make it really hard for the gaffer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gaffer in question has already been full of praise for Koumas, particularly since preseason. \u201cI said in the week and say it for a reason, I see it in training every day,\u201d Iraola beamed on Tuesday. \u201cThe energy he shows is contagious for the rest. When they see the ones up front doing it, they are forced to go from behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
McConnell played in a slightly more advanced midfield role than usual, while Koumas stood out as the main presser at the top of an attack that looked far sharper without the ball. Liverpool won possession in the final third eight times against Spurs, double their average in the Premier League so far this season.<\/p>\n
That sharpness contrasted with the previous match against Fulham, when Iraola pointed to a weak press as a major reason for the lack of threat. \u201cWe were recovering the ball always very low and when that happens you have to attack against 11 players and that makes it more difficult to make the difference,\u201d Iraola fretted. \u201cWe need to recover the ball as high as possible because it makes the offensive side a lot easier, and we have more situations to attack in one vs. one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iraola has also made clear where he believes the responsibility lies. \u201cIf the ones up front do their job very well then the defenders and midfielders look good,\u201d he bluntly explained. \u201cIf the players ahead of you are doing their job then you look a better midfielder or defender because you win more easier duels, you have more chance of winning one. It is more collective.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Szoboszlai praised Koumas and McConnell after Liverpool’s win, saying both youngsters deserve to play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1836,1162,180],"class_list":["post-19514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}