Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Bukayo Saka is one of the finest players to represent Arsenal in recent years.
Mikel Arteta’s ‘starboy’ was a shining beacon of hope in the darkest times at Arsenal, while he’s since become a key cog in a title-winning machine.
However, the last few years haven’t necessarily been all that easy for Bukayo Saka. The winger has had to battle injury issues galore, and, at times, his form has been questioned.
This season, the England star looks like something close to his best, he has three goals in five Premier League games to this point, but, interestingly, another part of his game appears to be declining.
Indeed, as good as Saka has been in front of goal this season, his creativity has taken something of a dip, and that’s something that Mikel Arteta will surely want to take a look at.
Bukayo Saka looking on during an Arsenal game
Photo by Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Bukayo Saka’s creative output is declining
Once upon a time, Saka was the single most creative player in Europe. Indeed, Saka had the most assists in Europe a few months into the 2023/24 season, and there was genuine talk of Saka breaking the all-time Premier League assists record in 2024/25.
However, since then, his assist numbers have taken a significant dip, and his creativity just doesn’t seem to be where it once was.
Saka went 365 days without a Premier League assist at one point, and a look at his numbers this season shows that he has declined on that front.
2026/27 2024/25 2023/4
Key Passes per game 1.4 2.3 2.6
Shots per game 3 2.7 3.1
Dribbles per game 1.4 1.6 1.4
Crosses per game 1.2 1.5 1.3
Assists 0 10 9
So, what would appear to be the issue here? As the numbers show, Saka is making way fewer key passes, but, at the same time, that isn’t necessarily being substituted for more shots or dribbles. Interestingly, Saka is crossing the ball at a similar rate, so it’s not as if he isn’t trying to make things happen.
Ultimately, this could be blamed on the fact that opposition teams are now much more active in preparing for the threat Saka poses – he’s often doubled-up on by defenders, giving him hardly any space to manouevre or create.
On top of that, Arsenal’s attack has become slightly less dynamic in recent years – Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard have all departed as key sources of goals, while the Viktor Gyokeres experiment seemingly hasn’t worked.
There are a few factors that are playing into this, but one thing is for sure, Saka doesn’t appear to be the creative force he was in the Premier League a couple of years ago.