Bukayo Saka (7)

The thing is, he is not a natural goal-scorer anyway and I saw last season’s goals as more of a bonus. I don’t think he is a guy we should expect to rely on for goals.

2 Likes

We don’t really have a proper back up right winger in the squad, so it’ll be tough to rest him often.

1 Like

Arteta planned to start him and Martinelli for 40+ games…

It’s half looking that way, I suppose we have ESR as a backup option on the left and you can sort of shoehorn Jesus or Fabio out wide if you get really desperate.

But yes most people would admit we’re desperately short on natural quality wide players.

1 Like

Almost gave you your 10th like, but then I saw this. Not acceptable.

1 Like
6 Likes

Great news if true. If Saka and Saliba get tied down, I am trusting the process.

I wonder how much his new deal will be worth

He’s the poster boy of this Arsenal project.

Comfortably into the six figure range…I reckon he’ll be on £130-150k a week.

4 Likes

Agreed and so he should be. The man has barely had a rest in the last 18 months and has been our best player.

Give him what he wants and protect the asset.

I think he’s had a long summer break and no doubt he’s played plenty but it’s not an unusual amount of games for someone to play.

Last season he played in only the PL and a handful of LC games and was sat 40th in minutes played in the PL. He is over relied on but he wasn’t overplayed to the point that the summer break he got wasn’t sufficient enough rest.

Saka’s issue is that he lacks decisiveness in the final third of the pitch and his decision making is pretty much what you’d expect from a player of his age. He shouldn’t be a 38 game a season player for Arsenal right now, despite his obvious talent. He goes through long dry patches where his productivity falls off a cliff for a while and he becomes less impactful in games.

It’s a combination of age, needing to grow his all round game more and being relied upon too frequently to be the difference maker.

But if he needs a rest 4 games into the season after a summer off then there’s a lot of questions you’d need to be asking about his fitness.

1 Like

He’s a young man. I think a mental rest could be powerful. Watch 70 minutes from the touchline and come on as an impact sub roasting the full back.

:facepalm:

Gets worse every time you watch

14 Likes

in 3 months time one of the refs will come out and say ‘yes it was a penalty…honest mistake…really…oh well we might hopefully learn from this’

3 Likes

lol… the only saving grace for Mings is that it happens so slowly, but he is clearly, clearly impeding Saka and rendering his move impossible… could it be argued as obstruction instead? mmmm seems more like holding/grabbing for a pen.

It’s stuff like this that made me want coaches to be able to challenge calls made or not made during the game and force the ref to look at it on the monitor.

1 Like
3 Likes

Embarrassing dive, lucky he didn’t get a yellow.

1 Like

I think his left foot rolled over the ball

1 Like

Yep, I don’t think it was a dive at all