Bukayo Saka – A season that could’ve been..

Just Arsenal News

·21 de março de 2025

Bukayo Saka – A season that could’ve been..

In his pre-match presser for the Chelsea game, Mikel Arteta provided a positive update on Bukayo Saka, much to the delight of Gooners around the world. Even though he didn’t give any guarantees about a return sooner than later, the prospect of having our best attacker back is exciting. Why not? We do have a small matter of a quarter final clash against Real Madrid to attend to, so having him back will go a long way in improving our frontline, and that will increase our chances considerably of going through to the semi-final of the Champions League.

Bukayo Saka’s injury seriously affected us and I could go as far as saying it changed the trajectory of Arsenal’s campaign. Regardless of how good Ethan Nwaneri has been or the efforts Gabriel Martinelli and Raheem Sterling to provide cover there, our right hasn’t quite been the same therefore affecting us in attack. Due to his brilliant understanding with Ødegaard, we have seen the Norwegian struggle to click in his absence, furthermore we have struggled to score frequently from set pieces – corners specifically – after losing his wicked deliveries on the in-swinger.

Vídeos OneFootball

As he nears a return, I can’t help imagine the stats he would’ve put in individually this campaign. For the past four seasons – excluding this – Saka has been consistently improving his goal and assist tally at pace. This season was to be no different as he started like a man on a mission. In the Premier League exclusively, this was the case as he had a total of 15 G/A from just 16 starts before his injury. Only five of that tally were goals with a bulk of it coming from assists, 10 of them in just 16 games in the competition.

That astonishing tally meant that he was well on course to shatter the Premier League record for most assists in a single season. registering assists in five consecutive matches at the beginning of the season equaled Thierry Henry’s record set in the 2004/2005 season but he failed to pull clear when we faced Leicester in matchday 6. He was however, on the path to shatter the League record when he registered his tenth and last assist back in November. Your money would’ve been on him to do it too when considering the variety of ways he was laying on the assists.

From balls into the box, lay-offs and mostly corners – he was firing on all cylinders! Speaking about the latter, his absence was a major factor in our mini corner drought in the PL before Marino’s strike against Chelsea. He was well on his way to beating the tally of 20 assists held by Thierry Henry (2002-03) and Kevin De Bruyne (2019-20) however tearing his hamstring in late December basically ended it. No one knows for sure if he would’ve been anywhere close but considering that he had 21 more games to register 10+ assists – had he stayed fit – my best guess is he probably would’ve.

This claim carries more weight considering his placing in some key metrics. Even after being out for three months, the England international still leads the way for expected assists per 90 (0.40), ranks joint second for big chances created (19) and also jointly in second place for assists overall (10). That is astonishing to say the least! Stats via FotMob.

In my opinion, his injury has played a massive role in our struggles in the latter stages of this campaign, well injuries to multiple players particularly has been the case, but one player we would’ve done well in having is certainly Bukayo Saka.

He could still yet make it back in time to salvage something from this campaign. Early April is the target but I can’t help but feel apprehensive ahead of a potential Madrid showdown. Don’t get me wrong, having him back in time for that first leg will do wonders, but my fear is putting too much pressure on a player who would’ve been out for just under four months at the time. There’s a collective hope from Gooners for him to come back in time for the game but where does that turn to asking too much of him? Also, him dropping a 9/10 performance is not guaranteed even if he makes it so it might be wise to temper our expectations.

Coming back to the season that might have been for Bukayo Saka, what are your thoughts on the record gooners, would he have broken it?

BENJAMIN KENNETH. ________________________________________________________________________________________ ADMIN COMMENT

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