Mikel Arteta has urged the football world not to get too excited about Bukayo Saka despite the 19-year-old coming up trumps for Arsenal yet again.
After scoring for the Gunners in the Boxing Day win over Chelsea, the England international turned provider at the AMEX Stadium this evening, teeing up substitute Alex Lacazette as Brighton were downed 1-0.
Having persuaded Saka to sign a new long-term contract back in the summer, Arteta is now keen to protect the Academy graduate from any unnecessary hype.
“I would like everybody to be cautious and let him be and let him develop,” Arteta told his post-game press conference.
“I think he’s having the right progression. I think he’s got the right people around him in his house, in his entourage.
“And then he’s got the right teammates as well to support him all the time, give him confidence, keep his feet on the floor, but as well to give him support and confidence. And then hopefully, we can be the right coaches around him, be the right club to see the player that he can be in the future.”
Saka’s performance very much mirrored the team’s at Brighton. In the first half, the Gunners found it very difficult to manoeuvre through or around the Seagulls’ low block but after the break, an upturn in tempo paid dividends.
“Today, he had a difficult game in the first half,” reflected Arteta. “We weren’t using certain moments to generate advantages for him and other attacking players in the right way. The game becomes really difficult all the time back to goal against a back five in a low block.
“In the second half the moment we started to play different balls and attack in a different way they found more freedom, more space, and more capacity to unlock the situations and the block and we created four or five big chances and he was involved in most of them.”
After picking up an ankle knock, Saka wasn’t able to complete 90 minutes and had to be replaced by Dani Ceballos. Thankfully it doesn’t sound too serious.
“He was limping,” said Arteta, “I think he took a strong challenge there but hopefully he will be fine.”
Can’t play down the hype!! The kids the real deal
If we play down the hype he’s on a level just behind Ronaldo and Messi but on current form he’s better than Messi.
If we don’t play down the hype though,
They’re proving what a fucking shambles the signing of Willian was.
The LEGO EGO doesn’t like it….
We’re really blunt as an attacking force, it’s petrifying how much worse we’d be without Saka. He’s our best: Right winger Left winger Left back Left wing back Attacking midfielder That’s not over hyping him, it’s just a fact, he’s by far our best and most important outfield player. There’s no way we should be this reliant on a teenager. 6 points from our last two games has been great, but we’re a few medium-long term injuries away from being in real trouble. All the warning signs are there, this league is competitive, and we’ve got far too many bang… Read more »
if you leave out your best number10 from your squad your attack will be blunt.
If arteta has sense he will bring Mesut ozil back for the rest of the season
Yeah just what we need. Another divisive old player here only for the money, who can’t run, won’t press, rarely scores, hides when we’re on the back foot, pulls out of games he doesn’t fancy, and had barely even registered any assists 2 years before he was finally dropped
But he’ll pull off some nice dummies, feints and flicks in non-threatening areas of the pitch so that will make up for it all
if you cannot appreciate a player like mesut you are not a fan of football
🙄
I certainly appreciated him in the first half of his Arsenal career. But I’m deeply confused by anyone who can’t see that that wasn’t the same player as the one who has been taking the piss for the past 3 years
I guess it’s hard to say he wasn’t, but yeah, I get the feeling that this was always going to be the case after Wenger retired–his interest in Arsenal was always working with our legendary prof
exactly, good football is what i’m here to see
Thank God we only have five months of this
I would very much appreciate him leaving to actually play said football somewhere else.
Fans maybe divided on him but his team mates love him.
The same is apparently true for Xhaka too.
“His teammates” have dragged the club down to 13th.
Quite frankly, I’d prefer most of them to leave with him.
This is true. Interesting isn’t it. I think both things can be true, the players like him because he is a special player who sees the field of play differently from them so they will appreciate this special talent but he has also been a shit player in games since signing da ting, asking for special treatment, having all kinds of illnesses, not traveling north and pretending to play defense. Not a player like Martinelli that can literally lift an entire team through his application of intensity and aggression. We need more Martinelli’s and less of Ozil’s mentality in the… Read more »
Ozil is history. Unfortunately i dont think he is suited to the modern rigours of the prem. When Arteta played him he put a shift in tbf but produced virtually zero in the way of assists or goals.
All players are great when not playing. Ozil is a wonderful player ‘on his day’ Unfortunately his days have been so few & far between in the last 2 years that Arteta & previous managers all stopped playing him.
Lol. We’ve replaced ozil with willian. Same shit attitude. Same good player in the past who now doesnt give a shit.
Give it a rest man. Ozil is our part.
ozil is our part?
”ozil is our part” i rest m case.
Pretty sure he meant past, and he’d be correct. Sooner he is out of the club the better IMO
Bore off you condescending knobhead
Same line, same boring conversation, give it a rest. No one wants to talk about a washed up player. We have a generational talent emerging from our academy and you still want to press an agenda. Give it a rest dude.
no one wants to yet here we are talking about. it if you dont like the subject dont comment,
or should i ask for your permission on subjects i am allowed to discuss in future?
The squad is bloated & unbalanced, thats why players must be moved on & Arteta allowed to build HIS squad. Unfortunately in the players to be moved on there are very few saleable assets to help generate funds to buy. Liam Brady said the other day that virtually not a single player that Arsenal paid a transfer fee over the last few years is now worth more than we paid. Some of that is down to the current climate but most of it is down to over paying for players who we now cant shift. That is not down to… Read more »
Tierney, Gabriel, Martineli, Holding? The young players we bought mostly have more worth than the time we bought them. It’s just that we bought too many quick fix players or players in the wrong side of their twenties so it’s not just an Arsenal thing. Every club that buys a 26/27 year old can’t complain about their value at 30/31
Yeah fair point but they were not massive money signings & all young players. 4 players came in for less than 60m. I would also say that Artetas only ‘money’ signings, Mari, Gabriel & Partney all look like decent buys. Partey you will likely not get money back for though. We let it go to the deadline to try to get a better deal for him tbf. I get the comparison on 26/27 year olds look at money that Man U have spent. However if they are not producing we are not Chelsea, City or Man U finance wise so… Read more »
Arteta building his squad so far includes signing soares mari and willian on long contracts,
extending the loan deal of ceballos and giving luiz another year extension.
So thats 6 average players who we dont really have any need for who have been added by arteta.
Ceballos was a major part of the fa cup win and well worth another look at on loan. This season not so good but few have been. Not a huge outlay to add a body to the midfield which was looking very thin.
Mari has looked pretty good the last 2 games and didn’t cost a fortune.
Soares hasn’t let us down when played and was probably brought in because the club expected one of AMN or Hector to leave. Not great but not awful.
Willian and Luiz were expensive mistakes.
That makes 5 btw
add the keeper he signed to replace martinez. that makes 6
the less said about him the better
Artetas only ‘money’ signings, Mari, Gabriel & Partney all look like decent buys imho.
Agree. I look at Raul for those errors.
Is it me or is Aubameyang the new Ozil
The worst player on the pitch and £35000 a week and we’ve got that for another 3 years
It’s a tragedy
Yes it is you as I do not remotely believe that Aubameyang has been affected by his new contract. He was certainly not bad at all tonight and worked as hard as any other player, with some good work in defence. Yes he missed a couple of good chances but the goals will return.
He was unlucky today. Saka feed him early in the second half and the keeper made a good save.
Its a bad effect on your best striker to leave your best number 10 Mesut ozil out from the team who can create the most chances for him
Mesut hasnt created anything decent in the last 2 years whenever he’s played. He’s best at creating shit now.
Our best 10 is ESR
Ain’t you tired of this” bring back ozil” cos i am.
Change the J to a D
Or a B
I think he’s just low on confidence. A few goals and he will back I’d say. Also just back from injury to be fair
Too late, ha!
Unpopular opinion: Not here but there are many fans, who still like to blame Wenger for the current perils faced by the club. However the man left the coffers filled with the following – Over £ 150M, all of which we have blown in poor recruitment generally – A production line, with structure, facilities for and as well as a bunch of young talent, that we are benefiting from now All the above, while keeping Arsenal in the top 4, except ofcourse in the end, he did over stay by couple of seasons, which was arguably his only big fault.… Read more »
I really hope he will be back in that off-field role one day.. its still too soon and fresh
I’m not sure it’s unpopular , we are a silent majority who realize what he did for us and will forever be grateful. I wanted a change , but it doesn’t mean i’m happy with how it went down ,with better succession planning he could have had a board seat or and advisory role. Although i understand the argument of those who fear he’d cast his shadow over predecessor some of the stuff that’s gone on simply wouldn’t have happened
The hard part was Wenger clearly did not want to leave & clearly was not interested in allowing the club to modernize while he was in charge. Had he left on his own terms it would have been easier to bring him back in some capacity where he really could contribute. But with the circumstances the club needed a clean break & getting fired from the club you formed in your image for so long can’t be easy. He would be great on the board at this point but shouldn’t be brought back in any real power type role as… Read more »
modernise? how did that go?
The current situation doesn’t mean the club was wrong to move on as things had clearly stagnated. This is a squad who has serious leadership issues from senior players (our highest paid player has fallen out with 3-4 consecutive managers ) & obviously needs to be rebuilt. That said there are some good players who can make up the spine of a challenge for major trophies in a few years.
They were clearly wrong as things have gone to shit since wenger left.
wenger should have left in his own time and moved upstairs.
this club is a ruddlerless ship at the moment run by a bunch of amateurs
You clearly don’t remember what Wenger’s last year looked like. We had no real style as we were switching formations just to see what would work. The team finished 12 points outside the CL spots and was actually closer to relegation than champions points wise. Our contact and squad building were complete disasters. Wenger had one of the highest net transfer spends in all of Europe his last five years and chose to make Mustafi one of the top 5 most expensive defenders in history, chose xhaka over kante, dropped 20m on Perez. We let everyone run their contracts down… Read more »
you people make me laugh The man won 3 titles and 7 Fa cups built a new stadium new training ground built probably the best team in this clubs history and you slag him off because of 1 bad season and a few duff signings. how many duff signings did fergie make at united? plently he was given more money to correct any mistakes this club has fallen miles behind because they refused to give wenger the money to compete with the real big boys now they are falling futher and futher behind while idiots like you will hail the… Read more »
Let me repeat Wenger had one of the highest net transfer spends in all of Europe his last 5 years and one of the highest wage bills in the PL every year he was in charge. He was Arsenal’s greatest manager but clearly had gone stale.
For the club to get back to genuinely competing for major honors (PL & CL) the squad needs to be rebuilt & we’re taking a chance on a manager with potential. That might or might not work. BUT we were falling further and further behind with Wenger.
Let me repeat wenger should have left in his own time , with sucession planing in place. I.e he moved upstairs and a young coach took over.
Throwing away 22 years of hard work to build a structure and culture around the club because we had a bad season doesnt seem like a great plan to me.
So clearly winning doesn’t matter to you as it wasn’t one bad season but years of becoming less and less competitive. Wenger was fired bc he was doing a bad job – there was no reason to move him to anything other than a purely ceremonial role. If Wenger wanted that scenario he could have trained a young sporting director or coach but he refused to give up any power.
personally i think wenger had earned the right to leave on his own terms and was treated very badly by the club
the club has since been run in something of a joke manner hiring and firing various ,managers ,coaches ,sporting directors, directors of football etc
whilst throwing money at dubious signings. and sliding futher and futher down the table
the club in my opionion would have been in better shape with someone like wenger on the board who actually cares about the club .
which was the original point of discussion
Nonsense. Arsenal is a football club whose primary goal is to compete for the PL and hopefully CL title. Wenger was no longer remotely competitive in either and squad & contract management was a mess. No top club in the world would have allowed him to stay – it would be irresponsible quite frankly. Ferguson was allowed to leave in his own terms as he was still winning championships. Because he was sacked the club wasn’t going to offer him a role on the board and it’s doubtful he would have taken one. If he had chosen to mentor a… Read more »
And how is that primary goal going lately?
If you think that is the goal for this club with the level of investment compared to our major rivals youre in cloud cuckoo land
he was sacked and since then the club has gone down hill in a big way
We would be doing much better now if wenger was still the manager easily doing much better.
Lol. Your first sentence is lol.
Wenger apparently also felt he had earned the right to leave on his own terms which is why he kept seeking new deals and never countenanced moving on. If he hadn’t been sacked he’d still be here preaching about how it is impossible to compete with Chelsea
Wenger didn’t want to leave in his own time, he would’ve been carried out in his casket. He didn’t build a structure and wouldn’t give anyone any responsibility, which is why there was a huge power vacuum when he was eventually prised out. He bought Mustafi, Xhaka, thought Kolasinac was the answer to our problems, the football was worse than we are watching now. We haven’t done great since he left but stop rewriting history, latter day Wenger was a huge, huge part of the the problems at Arsenal.
Again, 1 bad season?? We were on the slide for years, regularly getting tanked by top 4 rivals and in Europe. Players were mostly not good enough or coasting and the stubbornness not to accept 60m from City for Sanchez was a sackable offence in it’s own right. Add in the Ozil deal, Mkhi, and the players mentioned above. Wenger made his own bed.
So you would have preferred to keep falling down the table? One door you know leads you further down the table and the other has possibilities. Can’t disagree that the current club set up is shit but I think you are rewriting history a bit or not looking at the entire picture.
Yup. We took a stance on raul and his shady shit, and godzilla for crapping us. Hired unai which everyone made fun of and we’re still swimming in our own shit.
I mean… the common sense thing if thr club wants to get arsene to leave so that they can ‘modernize’ and have ‘shared responsibilities’ etc would at least be taking action and actually knowing how to do it.
We had a pile of shit at board level. (Cleared out most of them, but havent replaced any with proper people).
The modernisation plan was Sven and Raul reporting to Ivan and Emery winning the Europa league. Within 6 months Ivan had jumped, Sven been pushed and Raul accumulated all the power. You can argue it didn’t work and why but the structure was reasonably sound only the whole organisation has been thrown into three years of flux instead of being given a chance. You can also see: 1. Wenger had to go, and needed forcing out as he was never going to go by himself – but it’s no one’s job to sack themselves 2. It probably should have happened… Read more »
Absolutely nailed it Diaby, spot on!
We really needed Wenger to recognize he was slipping and start to prepare for his eventual departure. Bringing in Edu & Arteta and having a clear internal succession plan for instance would have left us in much better shape than what happened. Instead we had a massive power vacuum which as you pointed out got filled by Raul. The truly disappointing thing IMO is it cost us Sven who is the type of person we’re going to need.
1 bad season??
Yup. Godzilla and the cunters wwre absolutely classless bastards who ruined our club, and then they brought in raul to further bleed us (im surprised raul is not being investigated by the police for shady shit like receiving bribes and all).
What hype???
Our best player just happens to be a 19 year old Hale end graduate who has the world at his feet .
No hype here.
The lad is legit and has been performing solidly for a long time now
I might be wrong but Artera doesn’t seem to smile when we score. No joy.
You got it right, you are wrong
One of the rare times this statement is true
Özil smiles though … at home … that’s why we don’t see it. 😉
This lad will only get better. The good thing is that he seems to have a good head too. A genuine superstar in the making, he is. I am still gutted he chose England over us; but who can blame the lad.
I like how Arteta talking about this to take the pressure of Saka before media overhyped him more. Good managerial stuffs.
This is Arteta’s message to the outside world.
His message, praise and first hand feedback to Saka will probably be much more glowing and positive!!!
Arteta recognises his talent more than anyone I am sure.
How many times does he get fouled each game. Referees need to protect players better.
players who dribble the ball will get fouled more.
what do you suggest making football a non contact sport?
its already soft as fuck as it is
He’s all that… Advice for him is to stay humble, put his head down and work extra hard. He’s a star in the making! 👍🏾
As mentioned, the take away on the weekend was not Tierney/Martinelli for me but our right side has provided more threat and balances out the team. Two of 3 goals against Chelsea were from right courtesy of Saka. Again yesterday, goal assist from Saka. He’s showing the older lads how to do it (Pepe and Willian need to take note) And he’s allowing Bellerin to come up more, the Spaniard’s crosses are better aimed than Tierney’s if not matching the Irishman for volume. But If we can also add one more player bias right to add more push there, it… Read more »
Just s shame he didn’t play down the Willian hype last August….