Champions League players to watch: Man United’s Hojlund, Arsenal’s Saliba and ‘the best player in Scotland’

The business end of the group stage is upon us as we head into matchday four. Here are five players I’m keeping an eye on. As always you can keep up to date on all the action across Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network and CBS Sports Network for Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s action. 

1. William Saliba, Arsenal

The VAR juggernaut rumbles on, crushing all else in its path, forcing so many to warp their views of the 86 minutes around Anthony Gordon’s goal to fit into their views of that incident. You do not have to look far to find the argument that even if the winner was contentious, justice was served in the result. Newcastle had wanted it more. They had dictated the terms of engagement and looked the more likely to find the winner. The reality is they never particularly got close, bar that one mad moment. In the hour beforehand Arsenal, underwhelming as they were in attack, outshot their hosts 12 to five, the Magpies five efforts on goal worth a combined 0.2 expected goals (xG).

The reason for that? The best player on the pitch, perhaps the best center back in the league and if you want to go gaudier than that you will not find any dissenters in this column. Amid the tumult, Saliba radiated tranquility. No Newcastle press was going to phase him, you could send three defenders at him and even with his back to them he would back himself to glide into a position where he could spray the ball out wide to Ben White.

Under pressure from three Newcastle players, Saliba finds the space to escape and get Arsenal moving forwards
Wyscout/Premier League

There is an assuredness to Saliba that is supposed to take center backs much more than 22 years to develop. He is more than happy to try a Cruyff turn under pressure, or to try to lob the ball over his head and that of an onrushing opponent. His composure can border on the contemptuous when he is really in the groove, but crucially it is always backed up by a cool head. If he overruns the ball or misjudges his flick, no matter, he will get out of danger in an instant.

Given his attitude, it is no wonder Arsenal run more and more of their game through the youngster. Last season he averaged 78.1 touches and 69.4 passes per 90 minutes of Premier League football. This term those numbers have jumped to 90.6 and 82.8 (he is passing the ball more accurately at higher volume too). Mikel Arteta deliberately envisaged establishing Saliba as an in possession hub for Arsenal this season, empowering him to step further forward, hold the ball more and impose himself on the contest in and out of possession.

Action bins for Saliba in the past two Premier League seasons. Note how he is taking more of his touches in an advanced spot in 2023-24.
TruMedia

It has been emphatically vindicated. Saliba is the heartbeat of an Arsenal side that, aside from the coalescence of a string of random events in the 64th minute, shut down Newcastle on Saturday much as they had shut down Sevilla in their last Champions League outing. This brilliant youngster makes the Gunners a defensive force.

2. Donyell Malen, Borussia Dortmund

Though three games of Champions League group play is hardly much to build a statistical case on, Malen’s name stands out for reasons that may not delight him as Dortmund bid for back-to-back wins against Newcastle that would leave them extremely well-placed in the battle to escape Group F. After 213 minutes in the competition, the Dutch international has 12 shots to his name, four of them on target, but none that have so far found the back of the net. Among every player in the group stage only Victor Osimhen has more efforts to his name without a goal.

And yet, if the clash at the Westfalenstadion is anything like that at St. James’ Park, Malen could prove to be the swing factor for Dortmund. Nominally the right winger, the 24-year-old worked his way to seven shots with intelligent movement across a Newcastle backline that was so often distracted by the hulking presence of Niklas Fullkrug. One moment he would be carrying the ball forward into the space vacated by Kieran Trippier, the next delaying his run until Dan Burn established position in the penalty area. It is rare to see Newcastle’s left back blown by in the fashion he executed on the hour in the north east, Burn finding himself brushed aside by the strength of Malen’s run.

Can he replicate this performance once more on Tuesday? He will certainly fancy his chances against a Newcastle side that could be without both Burn and Matt Targett, and even in a woeful collective display in Der Klassiker he got into good positions to test Manuel Neuer. Keep doing that and his nine game goalless drought will end before too long.

3. Takefusa Kubo, Real Sociedad

In reality you should be keeping a close eye on all of Real’s rampaging mob of southpaws as Mikel Oyarzabal, Brais Mendez and Kubo deliver conclusive evidence that football is simply more aesthetically pleasing when it is played by left footers. Of all them, it is perhaps the latter who captures hearts and minds the most, not least because it is so often that a tale like his becomes one of what might have been. Scorer of 74 goals with Barcelona youth teams, Real Madrid would subsequently snare him after he had returned to his native Japan, and do very little with him before loan spells at Mallorca, Villarreal and Getafe led to not that much. A real talent was in danger of atrophying and this was a real talent. Those 74 goals at Barcelona, after all, yhat’s pretty impressive, no? What if I told you they came in 30 games?

Much as they did with Martin Odegaard several years prior, Real Sociedad have now polished a gem that Madrid had lying around in their cupboards, only this time Kubo is theirs to keep and perhaps one day cash in on. You can see why the likes of Pep Guardiola are being linked with the 22-year-old, who ranks level with Rafael Leao for carries into the penalty area with 14 in this season’s Champions League. Such is the quality of his control and dribbling, he has no trouble blowing past bigger opponents, in the 35th minute of last month’s win at Benfica he sent as robust a center back as Nicolas Otamendi sprawling to the floor on the way to a great shooting position.

Carries by Kubo in Champions League matches this season
TruMedia

Just look at how few of those carries above take him sideways. Kubo is always attacking the box, exerting pressure on the opposing full back and in doing so often making space for the likes of Oyarzabal and Mendez to exploit. Such is the quality of Real Sociedad, who may well find themselves in the knockout stages by Thursday, that we will surely be coming back to this intriguing squad before too long.

4. Rasmus Hojlund, Manchester United

Watch almost any match that Manchester United’s £65 million center forward has played this season and you will convince yourself that Hojlund has all the raw ingredients needed not only to have a great career but to make a profound impact on his club right now. You could almost convince yourself he is one of the coming breed of unicorn footballers: no one with his shape should be so fast and technically assured. Then you would take a look at his output in the Champions League, where he has three goals in as many games, and assume everything has clicked.

And yet the totality of his output makes for altogether grimmer reading. That trio of goals in the forlorn pursuit of Bayern Munich and Galatasaray are the sum total of his scoring return. On his return to Copenhagen, the 20 year old has gone over a month without a goal, 217 minutes without a shot in all competitions. The eye test screams talent, but why is he averaging just 0.31 xG per 90 minutes and less than two shots?

Hojlund’s shots in the 2023-24 Premier League and Champions League
TruMedia

The obvious answer is that Hojlund finds himself in an utterly dysfunctional side, one with no semblance of a plan for how to build attacks when opponents refuse to give up transition chances to them. Indeed, all three of the goals he has scored so far have come off opposition turnovers; it is no problem whatsoever to have a striker who can punish such lax defensive work, Like so many of his teammates, the Dane looks designed to play on the break, but that might just be because we have not actually seen any patterns of possession play designed to get him shots against a set defense. Is it any wonder Hojlund looks so peripheral when it took United the best part of 20 minutes to touch the ball in the Fulham penalty area at all on Saturday?

The countervailing argument to this would be that the best strikers get their shots no matter how ill-functioning their team is. Last season Aleksandar Mitrovic and Joao Felix were averaging more than double as many efforts per 90 as Hojlund is this season. They were playing for Fulham and some team who had stolen Chelsea’s kits. Even good players in hellish form for zombified teams are getting up more shots than Hojlund. Is that cause for concern? Perhaps… but it is worth bearing in mind that this is a 20 year old with scarcely more than 2300 minutes of experience in Europe’s top five leagues. It is totally plausible that that sort of player is only going to get shots up in a team conducive to his qualities, and foolish that United have left such a load on the shoulders of the only natural nine with any credit in the Old Trafford bank.

The greater issue might not be Hojlund’s limited shot output but instead what months, perhaps years, of banging his head against a brick wall will do to the youngster. The talent is plain to see but — as Jadon Sancho, Paul Pogba, Donny van de Beek and [take your pick from dozens you can insert here] can attest — there are few places that blot out young players’ futures more comprehensively than Old Trafford.

5. Matt O’Riley, Celtic

It takes only three words to sum up Celtic’s Champions League campaign. Well, this sucks. Brendan Rodgers side travel to the Metropolitano four points off the top two, three off third. Given that they also have to go to Rome to face Lazio, the Scottish champions hopes of further European football after Christmas are hanging by a thread. That seems brutally cruel on a team whose non-penalty shots have been worth 2.3 xG whilst they have given up 2.9. Scrub out spot kicks and they look like a perfectly adequate European team, not one on the brink of elimination.

Certainly such a swift exit would be harsh on O’Riley in particular, his form in this competition offering a reminder of why he was coveted by Juventus and Borussia Dortmund as a teenager. So many of Celtic’s best moments in this competition have had the 22-year-old’s fingerprints on them, most notably the brilliant assist for Kyogo Furuhashi against Atletico Madrid, itself something of an upgrade on a similar goal the pair had combined for against Lazio.

Free to push forward in the Premiership and Champions League, O’Riley has shown a real command of the space around the penalty area. Even when the ball is not at his feet, his understanding of space asks questions of the defense. Get it to him, however, and he can do all sorts of damage. In 14 league and European games he has 11 goals involvements, his combined xG and expected assists at 0.55 per 90. It is no wonder he has been described as “the best player in Scotland” by Chris Sutton. One suspects it will not be long before that statement is invalid. Smart clubs will surely be looking to snap up such a talent.