‘Quality’ – Charlie Adam salutes Liverpool maestro for ‘really clever’ moment against Marseille
Charlie Adam was left applauding a moment of ‘real quality’ from Dominik Szoboszlai to give Liverpool a deserved lead at half-time against Marseille on Wednesday night.
The Reds though they’d hit the front just after the midway point of the first half when Hugo Ekitike finished past Geronimo Rulli, but the Frenchman was narrowly offside and the goal was duly chalked off.
Arne Slot’s side did take the lead for real just before the interval when the Hungarian midfielder curled a free kick underneath the home team’s defensive wall, which had jumped and didn’t have a player lying down to perform the role of draught excluder.
Adam hails ‘really clever’ free kick from Szoboszlai
On punditry duty for BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, Adam praised Szoboszlai for having the presence of mind to anticipate what Marseille would do and exploit it to Liverpool’s advantage.
The former Reds midfielder said: “Liverpool deserve this. They’ve been excellent but real quality from Szoboszlai – the wall jumps and he goes underneath it. Really clever from Szoboszlai to even think of it.”
Szoboszlai atones for recent errors in some style!
The Hungarian has previous for scoring directly from free kicks, as Arsenal discovered to their cost at Anfield in August, and he showed quick thinking in arrowing his shot underneath the Marseille defensive wall rather than trying to get it over the opposition players and down in time for it to be on target.
It would also have come as a relief to Szoboszlai, who’d been criticised for the error which gifted Barnsley a goal last week and also had a costly penalty miss in the 1-1 draw against Burnley on Saturday.
The 25-year-old confessed that it had been a ‘tough’ few days for him after those incidents, but he put that behind him to come up trumps for Liverpool when he was given the opportunity just before half-time.
Dominik Szoboszlai opens the scoring for Liverpool with a brilliantly executed free kick @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/m2whpwaWJX
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) January 21, 2026
Our number 8 was praised by the Liverpool Echo‘s Paul Gorst for his overall first-half performance in Marseille, with the journalist writing that the midfielder ‘set the tone with some of his pressing’ and has been ‘a huge asset’ to the Reds, also hailing the free kick as ‘impudent’.
Szoboszlai added another moment to his catalogue of brilliance in a red shirt, and if that proves to be the decisive goal tonight, his already immaculate standing among Kopites will heighten even further.
You can watch footage of Liverpool’s pre-Marseille
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