Champions League burning questions: How Liverpool play without Mohamed Salah, Barca's Lamine Yamal experiment

With the Champions League's Christmas break right around the corner, this week's round of fixtures have a critical feel for some of Europe's biggest sides. A dramatic and surprising round of results last month has Manchester City on the outside of the top eight before a critical trip to Real Madrid with Liverpool and Barcelona running out of wiggle room before big games for them. The former travel to Inter for a game that would have drawn enough eyeballs in any circumstances but the furor around Mohamed Salah's future only adds to the pressure on Arne Slot.

Hansi Flick probably doesn't feel the Barcelona fanbase breathing down his neck to the same extent but there will certainly be unwelcome questions for him if Eintracht Frankfurt upset the Spanish champions at the Camp Nou. Without any further ado, let's dive straight into those questions below:

1. Inter vs. Liverpool: Is Szoboszlai the man to step in for Salah?

A problem position in the Liverpool side this season can only mean one thing, get Dominik Szoboszlai in there. In true Trent Alexander-Arnold fashion, the Hungarian found a way to be the most impactful player on the pitch from full back during his sojourn there earlier in the season. When the rest of the midfield was faltering, the No.8 entered the fray. And now that Salah's mixed zone performance has made himself even more unpickable than his on field displays, it looks like Szoboszlai is going to have be the man for the right flank.

In the three games he has started in the position, Szoboszlai has proven impressive enough. In the 1-1 draw with Sunderland no one made more progressive carries while he and Florian Wirtz led the team in shots. In the 3-3 draw with Leeds Szoboszlai's performances took another step up, four chances created and what looked to be the winner only for the hosts to stun the champions at the death. You'd hardly confuse his output with prime Salah but for a stop-gap option 0.4 expected goals plus expected assists per 90 Premier League minutes is not to be sniffed at.

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All the more encouraging is how his presence has brought a slight upswing in form out of Wirtz, who might still be hunting that first Premier League goal but is getting ever closer in recent weeks. When Salah is in the team there is a risk that his need to get up close with the striker forces Wirtz to drop deeper and wider so that he can create with others. With a more natural midfielder out to his right, he can cut out a bit of the ball progression duty he brought on himself and work on dovetailing with the center forward. It hasn't always worked -- the 22 year old was too much like his old self against Leeds -- but even in the positions he takes up, you can see the vision for how Wirtz, who Liverpool need to be a success, can excel with Szoboszlai at his side.

So if moving Szoboszlai to the right is giving passable output for a Salah-less Liverpool and could get the best out of Wirtz, why is there even a question to ask here? Partly because a front four with a repurposed attacking midfielder on one flank and whoever replaces Cody Gakpo on the other likely lacks enough of the stretch in behind factor that Liverpool need (though this is partially true with an ageing Salah in the XI too). More so, however, it is that any move that lessens Szoboszlai's involvement in the game is a bad one for Arne Slot.

In his three games on the right, the 25-year-old has averaged 72 touches per 90 minutes. Put him in midfield and that number swings up to just shy of 85. He uses them well and no wonder. Most teams are better when their best player touches the ball more. So far this season there is no more valuable player for Liverpool than Szosbozlai and when the need for results is as pressing as it is for this team right now, getting him on the ball might have to take priority over almost everything else, even Wirtz's development.

2. Real Madrid vs. Manchester City: Has Donnarumma been good enough?

Sixteen games, 15 conceded, seven clean sheets, a record of 12 wins, two draws and two defeats: the headline numbers would suggest that there is not really a great deal to say about Gianluigi Donnarumma. Dig a little deeper too and there is no sense of a great crisis. In the Premier League he saves a shade below 65% of the shots he faces and based on the xG value of the shots he has faced, he has conceded 0.1 more goals than he ought to have. Take a look at the graphic below and there's a smattering of high xG shots in the center of the goal that have been saved. Those that have gone in are either close range looks or are hit down into the corners.

In short, Donnarumma is batting at about average as a shot stopper. And of course the sample size for his performances is still very small. Goalkeeper xG, goals prevented and the like are notoriously variable even over the course of a season, let alone a few months. Sometimes you have a run of games where Samuel Chukwueze is hitting them perfectly, where the ball keeps breaking to an opponent at close range and where you feel a little wobbly under crosses. There's no reason to worry about Donnarumma just yet, that's for sure.

Equally there is nothing yet that suggests the volte face City took in terms of their goalkeeping profiles is paying off just yet. Dumping Ederson and recruiting both James Trafford and latterly Donnarumma spoke to a team that was prepared to sacrifice possession control for shot-stopping. There is no doubt the control is largely gone, City average barely 60% possession this season where two years ago that number was five points higher, and at the very base of the team they are lacking in distribution. It isn't just that Ederson was an 85% passer and Donnarumma is 75%, it was apparent in the wobbles against Leeds and Fulham that City were missing a goalkeeper who they could dump possession with, safe in the knowledge that no one was going to press him.

That trade off would make total sense if the return was something like the Donnarumma of last season, the best pure shot stopper in the game. Maybe they will get that when they need it, like on the days when they rock up to Kylian Mbappe's house. If they don't, however, then the current version of their first-choice keeper might not be enough to mitigate for Man City's troubles elsewhere.

3. Barcelona vs. Eintracht Frankfurt: Could Yamal excel centrally?

At a mere 18 years of age, Lamine Yamal has basically completed winger-ing. If he isn't world football's most devastating force off the right flank then he is not far off. It seems like it has been years now where it has been so easy for Yamal to manufacture crossing and shooting opportunities for himself that he's had to artificially raise his own difficulty level with his outside of the boot deliveries and devilish dribbling through opponents.

Fortuitously for Yamal, an injury crisis among his team mates offered him a chance to test himself in even more prime locations on Sunday. A late knock for Raphinha, Fermin Lopez's limited availability post-injury and Dani Olmo's injury issues meant someone had to take the spot behind Robert Lewandowski. That task would fall to Yamal, who played the role as if he'd been doing it every day of his brief life.

On the flanks Yamal has license to gamble with possession, to risk losing the ball in order to force the issue and get the ball into dangerous spots. Such cavalier play in central areas can be altogether more damaging so this time out the youngster was more reserved in his passing, completing each of his first 34 passes, the first of a mere three giveaways from 47 attempts coming well after the hour. Among those passes was a perfectly placed through ball from which Roony Bardghji ought to have delivered an assist for Yamal to go alongside the penalty he scored. Still, it wasn't Yamal's final third output that won praise from Hansi Flick -- that can be taken for given -- but moments like that which led up to the Bardghji chance, Barcelona's No.10 gliding in to steal possession and start an attack up field.

"We asked him if he would like to play as a '10' and he said yes," said Flick. "Everything I saw of Lamine tonight was good. The connection with Roony. The most important thing was his defensive contribution. It was incredible." The numbers certainly leap off the page. Yamal hurled himself into 24 duels, a number that isn't just well over double any of his team mates but also more than a quarter of Barcelona's total. Three tackles, seven ball recoveries, possession won six times in the middle third: these aren't just the numbers of an energetic cameo in an unfamiliar role. That's prime Mason Mount stuff.

As such there's a pretty compelling case to be made for giving Yamal so more looks at the number 10 spot to go with his No.10 shirt. Eintracht Frankfurt would be an ideal test, the sort of you attack, we attack game where an industrious presser in advanced areas can make a huge difference. Yamal is already so far ahead of where any 18-year-old should be in his development out wide that he can afford to test himself elsewhere. If it doesn't work as well in future, no trouble. Yamal can simply go back to being one of the best attackers on the planet from his old haunts.