Darren Bent suggests £30m Arsenal midfielder is better than Dominik Szoboszlai now

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Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai is one of the Premier League’s most in-form midfielders right now.

However, according to former England striker Darren Bent, the Reds Hungarian maestro is still yet to reach the level of Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard.

Asked by TalkSPORT last night who he’d rather start, bench and sell between Szoboszlai, Odegaard and Tottenham’s James Maddison, Bent put the Gunners captain top of the pile.

“I’m starting Odegaard, bench Szoboszlai, sell Maddison,” said the pundit. “Szoboszlai’s been very good, plus I’ve just seen Maddison rip Arsenal to pieces!

“All three of them, well Odegaard’s not a new signing, but certainly Szoboszlai and Maddison have been top, top draw.”

Bent plumps for Odegaard

To be fair, this was not a completely neutral question for Bent to answer. Since he became a pundit a couple of years ago, it’s become clear just how big an Arsenal fan the former striker is.

So, seen through that lens, he was always going to pick Odegaard here.

And although we may not like it as Liverpool fans, there’s still a decent argument that, all rivalries aside, the Norwegian is the right choice.

Szoboszlai could of course make a mockery of that in the coming months, and we hope he does. But as of right now, Odegaard perhaps just edges him.

Since arriving for around £30m from Real Madrid, the Arsenal midfielder has been excellent. Last season Odegaard was one of the key driving forces behind the Gunners’ unlikely title charge. 15 goals and 7 assists in the Premier League is not to be sniffed at from midfield.

If Szoboszlai can hit those kinds of numbers for Liverpool this season, we’ll all be raving about him to anyone who will listen.

Still, numbers aren’t everything in football, and Odegaard and Szoboszlai are different types of midfielder. If Liverpool could find a way to get boyhood Red Odegaard playing alongside their new No.8, now that would really be something. For now though, we know who we’re picking, and it isn’t the Arsenal man.