'There should not be any wall,' Owen after Dominic Szoboszlai's world-class free-kick from 32 yards
Dominic Szoboszlai's stunning 32-yard free-kick in the 83rd minute secured Liverpool's 1-0 victory over Arsenal, marking their first win against the Gunners in seven Premier League encounters.
Last Updated: 11.56 PM, Aug 31, 2025
With a world-class free-kick from 32 yards, Liverpool midfielder Dominic Szoboszlai helped the defending champions win their first match against Arsenal in their last seven Premier League matches. At Anfield on Sunday, the Hungary captain scored in the 83rd minute to hand Liverpool a 1-0 win.
What happened?
With 8 minutes to go in the match, Martin Zubimendi fouled Curtis Jones to earn a yellow card and hand Liverpool a free-kick.
First, Mohamed Salah, Dominic Szoboszlai, and Cody Gakpo gathered around the ball to take a chance from that long. However, from body language, it was quite evident that Soboslzai would take the free-kick.
Salah stepped away and took a defender with him. Szoboszlai took a deep breath and went over the wall with the right pace and dip to find the top bin, left to David Raya, who could not do anything about it.
It is now the furthest free-kick in the Premier League this season. Szoboszlai's 32-yard free-kick gave Liverpool three points and its first win in seven games over Arsenal.
This is also Arsenal’s first away defeat since November 2024.
Szoboszlai, who won the player of the match, stated that because of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is now with Real Madrid, he could not take any penalties and as he has now been given the oppurtunity, he is happy to convert that into a goal.
Read Also: Thomas Tuchel drops Trent Alexander-Arnold from England squad for World Cup qualifiers: But why?
“There should not be any wall:” Owen
Former Liverpool star and the 2001 Ballon d’Or winner believes that whenever a free-kick is ‘that far’, there should not be any wall. The former English striker feels that the wall is preventing the goalkeeper from having a good view of the ball.
According to Owen, only when the free-kick is around 20-odd yards, there should be a wall; otherwise, they should let the free-kick taker have a go at the goal, without the goal.
With more and more analytics coming into the game, Own feels that soon the wall will vanish and the attacking teams will set their own wall.