In last weekend’s 3-1 victory over Wolves, Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai became the first midfielder or attacker signed by Jürgen Klopp to complete 90 minutes in his first five Premier League appearances.

Given his performance levels (Szoboszlai was player of the month for the Reds in August), ability to adapt to different shapes and remarkable battery, this is a trend that could continue, even if he’s highly unlikely to be ever-present in the competition.

On Thursday, as Liverpool opened its Europa League campaign away to LASK in Austria, Szoboszlai was named among the substitutes for the first time since his $77m (£60m/€70m) move from RB Leipzig in the summer, with Harvey Elliott deservedly getting a start after a string of impressive cameos off the bench.

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Klopp might have hoped that his new star could put his feet up and watch a comfortable win from the sidelines, but as it turned out, he had to call for him just after the hour mark, with the score 1-1 and an all-too-casual Liverpool dogged by sloppiness.

Szoboszlai, who replaced young winger Ben Doak, came on in a phase of the game where LASK, after a brief flurry following Darwin Núñez’s equalizer from the penalty spot, was largely sitting deep to protect a point.

That meant he had plenty of chances to get on the ball, recording 34 touches and completing 25 passes (at an accuracy of 93 per cent) in just half an hour on the pitch .

The Hungarian, who had looked like an expert deep-lying playmaker in the second half at Wolves, was a strong creative force once again here.

Impressively, even though he didn’t start the game, he finished second in the Liverpool ranks for shot-creating actions on four, with only Ryan Gravenberch (five) registering more.

Szoboszlai injected a much-needed urgency into the Reds’ performance, playing six progressive passes (only Elliott and Stefan Bajčetić had more with eight apiece) and seven passes into the final third (again only beaten by Bajčetić on eight).

Meanwhile, only Kostas Tsimikas (140 yards) and Gravenberch (128) posted a higher progressive carrying distance than the 22-year-old (117).

Liverpool will clearly face much tougher tests in the majority of its games this season, but this was certainly an encouraging indication of the impact Szoboszlai can make off the bench, albeit an unsurprising one given his quality.

This is important because the club will have to think about protecting a player who isn’t necessarily used to taking on the kind of load he has in his early weeks at Liverpool.

At his previous club, Leipzig, he only started 43 out of a possible 68 Bundesliga games over the course of his two seasons, and he would only complete 20 minutes without being substituted.

In this regard, Liverpool ought to heed the cautionary tale of Fabinho’s decline following the Brazilian’s exit in the summer.

As pointed out by Liverpool.com’s Andrew Beasley (in a Twitter/X post from July 15), the Brazilian had played the career minutes you’d expect from a 35 year old by the time he reached his late 20s.

While that partly reflected his importance to Liverpool, it may also have been down to the lack of an adequate back-up.

The burden took its tool in his final season with the Reds, as an exhausted Fabinho looked unrecognizable at times.

It’s very early days for 22-year-old Szoboszlai, in more ways than one, but the process of preserving his longevity should already be firmly underway.