Mark Langdon: Liverpool hungry again

There's one month until Christmas but the real present for most football fans is the realisation that we are done with international breaks until March.

The lack of jeopardy around the world of international qualifiers is in large part down to the expansion of the finals themselves. The bloated 24 team Euros - with the playoffs entrants coming from the Nations League groups - meant you had to do pretty badly not to stand a chance of at the very least having a potential backdoor route to Germany next summer.

It's even worse in South America, where Brazil's three-match losing streak leaves them sixth in Conmebol qualifying after six rounds of matches. 

Fortunately for the Samba Stars, six of the ten participants will qualify automatically for the 48-team World Cup and the seventh will go into an inter-confederation playoff where most South American countries are likely to be favourites, leaving the continental rivals to play 18 games to get rid of three nations.

And people thought the cricket and rugby union World Cups went on a bit too long!

Thankfully, the Premier League is back and serving up eight - yes eight - rounds of matches between this weekend and the New Year fixtures, which have been spread over four days to ease people out of those post-festive blues.

The best game of the lot could come as early as Saturday lunchtime when Manchester City host Liverpool in a match which for my money features the best two teams in England. And if anyone can match the relentless pace usually set by Pep Guardiola's champions then it is likely to come from the red corner of Merseyside.

City smashed Liverpool 4-1 in their last meeting in April, when Jurgen Klopp's visitors managed one shot on target, only four attempts overall, one corner and just 32 per cent possession against a home team minus the services of Erling Haaland.

Klopp went into that battle with a midfield of Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Harvey Elliott and with hindsight it was a long way short of the required energy for an assignment of that difficulty.

A new wave of midfield reinforcements has brought about a wave of optimism and few players have been better than Dominik Szoboszlai this season.

Szoboszlai, as difficult to spell as he is to nullify, has been a revelation since joining from Leipzig and it will be interesting to see if he can force the same kind of havoc from an inside-right position that Cole Palmer was able to create in Chelsea's 4-4 draw against City before the international break.

Rodri is brilliant but he can't plug all the gaps and, with Guardiola committed to using Julian Alvarez off Haaland, there is an increasingly big job for the Spanish anchor with only Bernardo Silva offering proper defensive assistance. 

Just Kieran Trippier, Bruno Fernandes and James Maddison have provided more key passes than Szoboszlai this season, while only Fernandes and Maddison is ahead of the Hungarian in shot-creating actions which is some effort given the 23-year-old is new to the Premier League.

Szoboszlai tops the Liverpool charts for progressive passes and is second to Mohamed Salah in the progressive carries department, while his 922 touches is easily the highest tally of any Red. 

Szoboszlai is the new boss of this Liverpool midfield and after scoring a wonder goal for Hungary in midweek he now takes aim at City. 

Whether he is able to maintain his current standards might decide whether we get a meaningful  title race.

Premier League predictions

Both teams to score in Newcastle v Chelsea  4-6

Newcastle have failed to score in only one home game in all competitions this season and Chelsea have racked up 16 goals in their last six league games.

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