I'm loving Liverpool partnership Arne Slot has created and Dominik Szoboszlai can benefit

It's been a joy to watch Liverpool at times already this season — and the most exciting thing is that there is still so much more to come. Arne Slot has made a good start but he should be hopeful of things clicking into gear even more as the fixtures continue to come thick and fast.

Central to Liverpool being much more in control at the moment — the key to its so-far-sustained success — is its midfield. With something more akin to a double pivot having emerged with Ryan Gravenberch at the base and Alexis Mac Allister not far in front of him, Slot appears to have got the balance right. Curtis Jones, meanwhile, is pushing for a start, and Harvey Elliott is still to come back from injury.

Gravenberch has been the most obviously improved player since he came back for the summer under a new regime. So far this season, he has stood out the most for Liverpool — but that is, in part, because he barely played last year. The 22-year-old has already started six matches in the Premier League this season and only made the starting XI in 12 during the whole of last year.

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With Martin Zubimendi opting to remain with Real Sociedad rather than make the switch to England, it has mainly fallen on Gravenberch to plug the gap — both in terms of quality and availability. And so far, he is doing a sterling job.

Elsewhere, though, Mac Allister, who scored his first goal in the Champions League to open the scoring against Bologna at Anfield, has been brilliant too. He hasn't always been perfect — taking a good while to grow into things against Wolves last weekend, for instance — but when he is on a roll and purring, he is a glorious watch.

Those passes around the corner into the feet of a teammate are delightful and his work rate in the middle of the pitch shouldn't be overlooked either. In many ways, the Argentine is what Thiago Alcantara could have been had he not picked up so many injuries. The South American has the same pace-setting and tempo-dictating style; Mac Allister does it not quite to the same level but with more legs on top.

With Szoboszlai in front of Gravenberch and Mac Allister, there is no shortage of legs or intensity in the Liverpool team. And with the pairing that Slot has put together behind the Hungarian number 10, there is a huge amount of technical quality — Szoboszlai showed signs of getting back to his best against Bologna and he can only benefit from the platform behind him.

Defensively, Gravenberch and Mac Allister might well get bigger tests this season, with the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City and Real Madrid all looming. That, though, is a question for the future. In the here and now, Gravenberch and Mac Allister, when they are purring as they were at times against Bologna, are nothing short of delightful.