Phil Foden’s unpredictable decline should be a stark warning to Liverpool’s rising star

Dominik Szoboszlai is on a contrasting trajectory to Foden after leading Liverpool’s charge to the title

Phil Foden was ready to take over the world. A potential was finally fulfilled last season, the ghost of David Silva laid to rest at long last.

In the same season, it wasn’t that Dominik Szoboszlai was particularly bad. The conundrum baffling many Liverpool fans was that it was difficult to decipher what the Hungarian had actually been brought to the club for.

That it is Szoboszlai helping inspire Liverpool to the title this season as Foden fades back into frustrating obscurity is a trajectory nobody saw coming.

The contrasting pair were deployed in similarly unfamiliar roles as their side’s focal point in attack in Sunday’s blockbuster at the Etihad. Only one had any effect on the outcome of the encounter and, essentially, the destination of the title.

During his first season on Merseyside, some thunderbolts with power rarely generated by humankind suggested Szoboszlai’s long-range shooting and willingness to go for goal from all angles were behind the club’s decision to splurge £60m. But those efforts dwindled as the campaign wore on.

As a result, Liverpool’s lack of investment in the summer transfer market raised even more eyebrows – why were the club putting so much faith in a figure without discernible game-effecting traits?

Szoboszlai’s first five league starts in an attacking midfield role this season delivered eight shots at goal, only adding to the doubts over his worth to the side. However, something in the last few months has changed.

A clinical finish from Dominik Szoboszlai rewarded Arne Slot’s faith in playing the midfielder further forward (Martin Rickett/PA Wire)

Across his last 12 league appearances in the Slot machine, Szoboszlai averages five shots per match. Crucially, these are not simply speculative efforts from distance, the xG stats show.

Offering such a threat led to Slot making the bold step of deploying Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones in central attacking roles against City – very unfamiliar territory for both – to devastating effect.

Mohamed Salah’s breathtaking numbers will again make the headlines but Szoboszlai’s superb finish for the second killed off the City resistance there and then, capping another all-action performance that was again, crucially at this time of the season, critical to the result.

Szoboszlai emulated Mo Salah with a goal and an assist in Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Man City (Action Images/Reuters)

What has happened to Foden only he will know. The Euros played their part – he has not looked the same since – but even simple passes were not coming off on Sunday.

Even his own fans are starting to turn on him. Foden is not the only City player whose form has fallen off a cliff this season, but what makes his decline so galling for City regulars is the heights he reached last term.

The goal that clinched City yet another title was fitting. The sashay onto his left foot, the sweep of the boot, the ripple of the top corner. One of their own had conquered these shores, now for world domination.

Phil Foden’s tough season continued with an underwhelming performance against the Reds (Getty)

Again, he has become somewhat a victim of his versatility, with the variety of positions he has been asked to deploy hardly helping him rediscover any semblance of form.

A central attacking role, however, even if not quite as advanced as he found himself on Sunday, is where he was always meant to end up. The outcome is what hasn’t gone to plan.

Like most in Manchester of the footballing persuasion, Foden just needs this season to end and to start again next year. The next few months for Szoboszlai will feel very different indeed.

A second-year improvement was always possible – Liverpool don’t tend to get too many big-money signings wrong. But there aren’t many who could have foreseen the attacking force he has become.