Ever-Present Bukayo Saka is on Course to Become an All-Time Premier League Great

This week will bring up the sixth anniversary of Bukayo Saka’s Arsenal first-team debut, and based on his performances so far, he could easily go on to threaten some all-time Premier League records on his current trajectory.

Not many would have foreseen the impact that Bukayo Saka has had at Arsenal when he made his debut for the club as a 17-year-old in their Europa League win over Vorskla Poltava on 29 November. Now, six years on, there’s a solid case behind Saka’s potential to challenge the Premier League record books over the next decade.

While Arsenal have had some underwhelming performances so far this season and find themselves nine points off leaders Liverpool already, the same cannot be said for Saka. The 23-year-old has arguably found an even higher gear this season, becoming even more integral to the Gunners following the early-season injury to the influential Martin Ødegaard.

With the Norwegian now back in action, Arsenal’s Matchday 12 Premier League win over Nottingham Forest and the 5-1 Champions League thrashing of Sporting CP saw him and Saka team up to terrorise the opposition defence. With Ødegaard back alongside him, Saka was freed up from as much focused opposition attention.

In the Forest game, Saka attempted six shots himself and created four more for teammates. It was the eighth time since the start of last season he’s managed to reach double figures for shot involvements in a single Premier League appearance (four this season, four last season). That’s more often than any other player in the competition.

With Ødegaard only playing 425 minutes of Premier League action in 2024-25 so far, a lot of the responsibility for Arsenal’s attacking threat has been pushed in Saka’s direction. Only Matheus Cunha for Wolves (44.8%) and Cole Palmer for Chelsea (41.2%) have been involved in more of their team’s Premier League shots this season – either having the shot or creating it – than Saka for Arsenal (40.4%).

But shouldering responsibility isn’t something he shies away from. He’s been influential in Arsenal’s attack since Mikel Arteta was appointed in December 2019, with Saka in the top five Premier League players for chances created overall (319) and created in open play (248) since that date, while only five players have more goal involvements (93) in the competition.

Last season was Saka’s best in front of goal for Arsenal, with 16 Premier League goals and 20 in all competitions. It was also his best assist tally in all competitions (14), while it was the first season in which he’s surpassed 100 chances created (113).

Saka’s propensity to be such a threat, both in his creativity and in front of goal, makes him stand apart from most other Premier League players.

Since the start of 2023-24, no player to have played at least 2,000 minutes has a higher average expected assists per 90 than Saka (0.34), while he’s also inside the top 25 for non-penalty expected goals per 90 (0.32).

He also leads the Premier League rankings since the start of last season for shot-ending sequence involvements in open play (317), with 71.2% of those seeing him either take the shot or create the shot for a teammate – in just 91 of those 317 sequences, his only involvement was in the build-up before the chance was created (29.8%).

While one of the players to most frequently take on opponents – only seven have more take-ons than Saka since the start of last season (179) – his success rate in those take-ons (39%) is lower than players who have been involved in more than him, such as Mohammed Kudus (52%), Jérémy Doku (47%), Matheus Cunha (43%), Eberechi Eze (44%) and Luis Díaz (45%).

When Saka is allowed time and space to run distances with the ball, however, he always creates problems for the opposition. Since the start of 2023-24, only Alejandro Garnacho (90) and Díaz (82) have recorded more ball carries (moving at least five metres with the ball) that have ended in either a shot or chance created than Saka (76), but it is Saka who leads for those that have ended with a goal being scored (13).

Saka also leads for attacking one-v-ones in the Premier League across that time. A one-v-one is defined as a situation when an attacking player with the ball is isolated against a single defender, and Saka’s had the most overall (469) and the most in the final third of the pitch (408), while Arsenal have had a shot within the next 10 seconds after 98 of those (20.9%). That’s a higher proportion than teammate Gabriel Martinelli (15.1% of 372 one-v-ones), who has also benefitted from Arteta’s tactic to try and isolate his wide players to engage in one-v-one battles with opposition defenders.

After last weekend’s win over Forest, Saka is nearing the landmark of 100 goal involvements in the Premier League, now just six away from his century (94 – 51 goals, 43 assists). There’s little chance he will fail to achieve this before the end of April, which means he’ll eclipse the efforts of Cesc Fàbregas who was 23 years, 237 days old when he reached 100 in the competition.

That means Saka will become the fourth youngest player to reach 100 goal involvements in the competition, behind only Michael Owen (22y 57d), Wayne Rooney (22y 122d) and Robbie Fowler (22y 166d).

Saka is already eighth in the all-time Premier League ranking for goal involvements before turning 24 years old, and he’s got time to spare to move further up that list.

Ahead of his 24th birthday on 5 September next year, Saka has 26 games this season plus a handful at the start of next term to move past Raheem Sterling (96), Fàbregas (105), Cristiano Ronaldo (110) and Romelu Lukaku (112).

There’s a strong argument that Saka could challenge the all-time Premier League record for total goal involvements. That record is currently held by Alan Shearer (324), ahead of Rooney (311) and Frank Lampard (279). At the age Saka was on Saturday versus Nottingham Forest (23y 79d), Shearer only had 29 goal involvements (though he’d played in the top flight before the Premier League’s inception in 1992) which is 65 fewer than Saka (94).

Even Lampard had just 36 goal involvements by that age, before rapidly increasing his output later in his 20s. Rooney (117) is one of only three players to have more Premier League goals and assists at Saka’s age, alongside Owen (117) and Fowler (110).

Saka should be confident of challenging those higher up the list. Many say that the best ability is availability, and he certainly has that.

Since 2021-22, only James Tarkowski (123) has made more Premier League appearances than Saka (122), while the Arsenal forward is one of only 10 players to have played over 10,000 Premier League minutes since then, too (10,022). Over that time, Saka has only missed four games and set a new Arsenal club record of 87 successive Premier League appearances in September 2023 before missing their 1-0 win over Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium.

So could Saka be in contention to eventually break the all-time Premier League appearance record, currently held by Gareth Barry (653)?

By the age that Saka was last weekend against Forest, Barry had only made three more appearances than Saka in the competition (181). In fact, only five players have played more Premier League games at that age than Saka has: Rooney (211), James Milner (197), Fàbregas (187), Raheem Sterling (184) and Barry (184). Looking at minutes played in the Premier League by that age, Saka’s tally (14,341) is surpassed by just four players: Rooney (15,738), Barry (15,176), Fàbregas (14,893) and Rio Ferdinand (14,879).

He has already played nearly 300 senior matches for club and country before even turning 24, and there are some concerns playing so much so young could take its toll. There’s also the fact that he is often targeted by opponents. He is one of only six Premier League players to be fouled 300+ times since Arteta’s first game in charge (302).

Should he avoid injury issues in the coming years, however, there is little doubt that Saka will challenge some of the all-time Premier League records. Arsenal will only benefit from having him around.

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