Bukayo Saka and the 2020 vision that now puts Arsenal man ahead of Mo Salah

Bukayo Saka is the only player from the top five leagues across Europe who has created more than 20 chances and made more than 20 tackles. Let that sink in for a moment and then appreciate how valuable such a player would be to any manager.

A creative force with defensive sensibilities whose hunger for the ball is so great that he will make more tackles than your defensive midfielder and almost three times as many as your full-back on the same side. And then either cut inside to shoot or produce a perfect cross for your onrushing winger on the other flank. An identikit footballer. A manager’s dream.

Three years after being called into the England squad for the first time as a left wing-back, Saka is not only England’s best right-winger but the finest in the Premier League. And yes, to all those who cannot look beyond goals and assists charts, that does include Mo Salah. On this occasion seven goal contributions does beat 11…according to the eyes and those other pesky statistics.

Saka has made more tackles in the attacking third than any other Premier League player this season and it’s not even close, which is astonishing for a player in a successful, front-foot, possession-based side. Behind him are players from Crystal Palace, Sheffield United and Burnley. Just beyond them is Salah, proving that pressing is still a pre-requisite at Liverpool, even when you are a 31-year-old superstar.

But while Salah still has occasional games where he looks slightly surprised that he is a footballer before slashing home a winner, Saka almost always plays with an ease that only comes with true brilliance. Even in games when social media would have you believe he was in the pocket of his full-back adversary, he still produces moments of barely believable excellence. Difficult to pull off from deep inside a pocket.

As we wrote in our 16 Conclusions from the 2-2 draw with Chelsea: ‘The whole thing was yet another reminder too of why Arteta is so keen at all times to have Saka on the pitch for every single minute of every single game if at all possible.

‘Even on a quiet evening for him – and this was that – he remains capable of delivering those moments of greatness. There’s been a lot of chat about certain other English youngsters over the international break, and with good reason, but let’s not forget how very exciting it is that we’ve also got a decade of Saka to look forward to as well.’

Is he a once-in-a-generation footballer like Jude Bellingham? No but they are rare; the clue is in the description. But he is damned close. You get the feeling that when Spurs inevitably hit a bump in the road that will throw James Maddison from his throne, it will be Saka who emerges as the player of the season, even if the PFA will likely reward Erling Haaland’s absurd goal-gathering.

“I can’t believe he (Saka) played at left-back when he can do that,” said career left-back Ben Chilwell after an astounding performance in an England shirt in March. But the truth is that part of the reason Saka can do that is because he was a left-back or wing-back, first under Unai Emery and then Mikel Arteta, who only fully abandoned the idea in the spring of 2021.

By then Saka was the complete winger that he suspected he might become as long ago as February 2020, when he was a ridiculously mature 18-year-old saying: “In the future if I do get to go back onto the wing I feel like I know how full backs play and playing as a full-back I know what wingers do, what I like them to do and what I don’t like them to do. It’s a good learning experience for me.”

There can surely be no better way of learning how to befuddle a left-back than by being a left-back. The gamekeeper turns poacher while retaining a strong interest in gamekeeping, a winger turned full-back turned winger again has been behind enemy lines and knows not only how to beat the opposition but how to help his own defenders. Ally that attitude and knowledge with genuine brilliance and you have the perfect winger.

There has long been talk of Jurgen Klopp wanting to build his new-look attack around Saka as he sees him as the ideal long-term replacement for Salah, though Arsenal’s emergence as title contenders has scuppered all such plans. And Saka at 22 is way ahead of Salah at 22, at which point the Egyptian was failing at Chelsea and already eyeing a loan move to Italy.

The truth is that Saka probably lacks the single-minded love of goalscoring that made Salah a 30-goal-plus attacker; the word ‘selfish’ is not always a criticism when it comes to forwards. But he does have something that Salah lacks: a stardust-sprinkled all-round game honed at the other end of the pitch. We suspect there is no manager across Europe who would turn that down.