This might qualify as something of a hot take, but I thought Weapons was a tad overrated. The story just didn’t take hold of me the way I had hoped it would. I’m sure watching it soon after enjoying Backrooms and Obsession (my wife had traveled for work multiple times in close temporal proximity and I’d taken the opportunity to binge horror films because she hates them) didn’t help but as the movie’s end credits rolled, I found that I had more questions than answers.
I guess my principal qualm with the movie is that it abstains from the requisite lore-building necessary for plot points to truly make sense within the context of the story. Oh, so this Aunt Gladys witch lady just so happens to be a relative of one of the children who didn’t go missing? And the child’s mother clearly didn’t know Aunt Gladys at all — otherwise she surely would have sensed that something was amiss with this distant kin of hers — but somehow discovered that the woman was ill and homeless and essentially invited a stranger to come live with her family? I guess I was supposed to just go along with that.
But what is the black ooze that people spit up once Aunt Gladys has taken control of them? Am I supposed to know what that is?
And why do the children Aunt Gladys has whisked away suddenly have superhuman strength at the very end of the film? Was there something I missed that should have made that clear?
I’m sure this comes across as nitpicking, and that’s probably what this is. The horror genre is about instilling fear, and much of fear is based in the irrational. If the official response to my inquiries is, “That’s just how it is and it’s really not that deep,” that would be understandable. Although I should point out, the official response currently seems to be that a prequel is necessary in order to properly flesh out the legend of Aunt Gladys.
However, one aspect of the film I find especially salient occurs at the outset of the story. When all but one of her students disappears at the very start of the movie, elementary school teacher Justine Gandy is immediately vilified by every parent in town. There is absolutely no evidence she had something to do with it — Justine is a petite 30-year-old woman of ordinary means with a rather lonely personal life and seemingly no allies who would aid her in a mass kidnapping. All that can be wielded against her is a vague instance in which she overstepped her professional boundaries to confirm the wellbeing of a previous student.
Yet she is widely accused of absconding with all but one of the children in her class. The police have questioned her and deemed her not a suspect, the lone student who remains has not indicated that she was involved in his peers’ disappearance, but all it takes is one angry parent in an anxious auditorium to instigate a mob. The resulting animus toward Justine is so great that the school places her on administrative leave and advises her to lay low.
It is a sad fact of life that most people typically look for someone to blame when things go wrong. We are reluctant to accept that an issue could be systemic. Perish the thought that a setback could be down to plain bad luck or other factors that are largely out of our control (like evil, voodoo-magic-wielding senior citizens). The point of failure must be singular and focused, something or someone that can be straightforwardly replaced. If not, the agency of your average individual, and likely a comforting worldview they have subconsciously curated over years, is gravely threatened.
This extends to football, of course. It is a pastime that so thoroughly controls our emotions, and thus fans throw around accusations, choose scapegoats, and scramble to pin the blame on those whipping boys if they don’t like their team’s current state of affairs. Logic is rarely afforded the space it deserves. If people have decided they don’t like a particular footballer, a narrative will be crafted to support their feelings regardless of what the objective facts have to say. Those people will “just know” they’re onto something. Even when they’re clearly not.
And so, when given long enough, this sort of forced imputation will find its way to even the least deserving players. Just as Justine Gandy became persona non grata for a crime she did not commit and ultimately contributed to solving, one of Arsenal’s foremost heroes during the Mikel Arteta era has now become the target of a rather desperate agenda. I am of course speaking of Bukayo Saka.
At first glance, the fringe movement mounting against him online seems to involve an amalgamation of criticisms regarding the Arsenal talisman. I’ve seen claims that he can’t finish levied against him. Some have asserted that the Englishman has not performed adequately in recent memory. There are even those who believe that injury has irreparably relegated Saka to “washed” status.
But of course, Saka’s finishing has been fine. As demonstrated by the below graphic from Cannon Stats, the winger had taken 18 non-penalty shots worth 3.08 expected goals (xG) prior to Arsenal’s trip to Brighton. Those attempts earned a post-shot xG (PSxG) of 2.4 and have resulted in two non-penalty goals.
Including penalties, Saka was at 19 shots totaling 3.87 xG before last weekend. Which means that as things stood, the winger is underperforming his total xG by 0.87 xG.
Even taking into account the loss at Brighton, Saka currently sits at 21 shots worth 4.23 xG in total. At the time of writing, the Arsenal man is underperforming his xG by a little over one whole goal. Over the course of a whole season, that’s actually not too shabby at all. Only a handful of games in, it of course looks worse proportionately. But right now, the sample size is too small to come to any definitive conclusion, including panic.
At the time of writing Saka has scored three goals from 15 shots in the Premier League, giving him a shot conversion rate of 20%. If you remove his penalty at Sunderland, that still results in 14.3% of his attempts finding the back of the net. Last season, he took 71 shots in the English top flight and finished with seven goals. That makes for a shot conversion rate of about 9.9%. During the 2024/25 campaign, the Englishman accumulated 67 attempts on goal and scored six times, giving him a conversion rate of just under nine percent. It’s of course a small sample size, but Saka is already demonstrating a jump in efficiency in front of goal.
So, contrary to the beliefs of his detractors, Saka’s finishing is far from a catastrophe.
Sure, he has clearly missed chances. Multiple times this season, he has done so in frustrating fashion. I’m a little more sympathetic in hindsight, but I still wish the Englishman could have gotten better contact on the rebound from a Martin Ødegaard shot at Brighton before the hosts scored their second goal. Failing to do something productive, be it passing to an open Kai Havertz or scoring himself, when he received the ball unmarked in Sunderland’s six-yard box in the 13th minute was infuriating. And his miss at Napoli frankly left me speechless.
But here’s the thing: he’s taking a bunch of shots so far this season. And that’s immensely encouraging. Yes, even if he is missing a lot of them right now. Because much like how chances created is a solid indicator of how many goals a team will score in total, big chances missed tends to correlate quite positively with top scorers.
Don’t believe me? Here are the top ten players for big chances missed in the Premier League last season according to FotMob:
Erling Haaland (30 big chances missed)Igor Thiago (20)Jean-Philippe Mateta (20)Dominic Calvert-Lewin (20)Ollie Watkins (19)Kevin Schade (15)Viktor Gyökeres (13)Bryan Mbeumo (13)Dango Ouattara (13)João Pedro (12)
And here are the top ten scorers in the Premier League last season:
Erling Haaland (27 goals)Igor Thiago (22)Antoine Semenyo (17)Ollie Watkins (16)João Pedro (15)Morgan Gibbs-White (15)Viktor Gyökeres (14)Dominic Calvert-Lewin (14)Eli Junior Kroupi (13)Danny Welbeck (13)
At the time of writing, FotMob has Saka in the top ten for big chances missed in the Premier League for the 2026/27 campaign. The Arsenal winger is currently tied for third-highest scorer in the English top flight. So barring some truly drastic finishing woes, I’m okay with him missing chances here and there.
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The important thing is that Saka keeps shooting. And so far, that doesn’t appear to be a problem. At the time of writing he has, including his involvement in the Community Shield, 23 shots in 519 minutes of game time, which means that the Arsenal no. 7 is managing a whopping 3.99 shots per 90. For comparison, Haaland is averaging 4.26 shots per 90 at the time of writing. What this means is that Saka is firing on opponents’ goals at an elite clip.
And just to make it clear, I believe most of finishing comes down to variance. The keeper you’re up against on a particular day, the quality of the pitch, the weather conditions, the ball itself… all these things affect any single chance in isolation. Obviously, there are players that are generally excellent finishers who overperform their xG. But typically, if you keep getting chances things will even out unless you are historically woeful at converting opportunities. To put Saka in that category requires some hysteria. I think he’s getting his final action wrong and snatching at shots a little, but he’s a player I trust to improve on that front.
That does bring us to Saka’s recent performances. Look, I’m not saying he has been utterly immaculate. Clearly, he’s still working his way back to full fitness. And I do have a complaint about how the winger has fared so far this season.
For essentially as long as he has been at Arsenal, Saka has showcased two superpowers. First is his world class decision-making; in the final third, the Englishman is absolutely remarkable at consistently choosing the correct option on the ball. If you want an attacking sequence to lead to a high-leverage moment, you should probably give him the ball. His second standout quality is the technical level to reliably perform those actions to an elite standard.
This season, however, we’ve witnessed a noticeable drop in the quality of that decision-making. More often than we’re used to, Saka has chosen to work an angle to have a pop at goal, almost focusing on that. Instead of trying the pass to Havertz or Christos Tzolis in seemingly better scoring positions, Saka has gone to greater lengths to try to beat opposing keepers himself.
This clear and persistent intent to shoot obviously clashes with what we’ve come to cherish Saka for. Admittedly, it has made for some frustrating moments already this season, like the aforementioned squandering of a lovely ball over the top at Sunderland. But having had some time to digest what we’ve witnessed, I can’t help but wonder if this is the plan. The question has to be asked — is Saka’s increased cutting in and shooting an instructed change?
Personally, I believe it makes plenty of sense upon consideration. As we are all too aware, Arsenal failed to acquire a superstar forward this past summer. Such a player — presumably someone such as or similar to Vinícius Júnior or Julián Alvarez — would have provided an uptick in goals for the Gunners. Tzolis has arrived instead, but he has yet to score in a competitive match for his new club.
Without this envisioned force of nature joining the front line, Arteta will need to make do with what he’s got until January. The continued availability of Havertz and Ødegaard (fingers crossed considering how much people are trying to injure them on international duty), the involvement of Riccardo Calafiori, and the introduction of Bruno Guimarães should hopefully already result in a better attacking unit. But someone needs to take point in the hunt for goals, and who better than Arsenal’s best offensive weapon?
And so we’ve accordingly seen Saka take initiative in that regard. That’s at least my hypothesis on the matter, but I think it’s one that makes a lot of sense. While it means we might see less of the cool customer who almost never wastes possession, I’m hopeful it will result in a more effective outcome in the long term. Right now, Saka is on pace for just under 23 Premier League goals this season. I suspect that if he stays fit and keeps shooting around his current frequency, he’ll at least manage between 15 and 20.
Even then, with Saka taking increased risks on the ball pursuant to a probable directive to more frequently go for goal, his recent performances are far from as bad as many seem intent to make out.
To open the season against Coventry, he scored Arsenal’s second goal while creating two chances, winning three of four ground duels, and completing his lone dribble.
At Aston Villa Saka tucked home the only goal of the match, finished with the most touches in the opposition box of any player to feature, and won 10 of 16 ground duels.
When Chelsea came to the Emirates, Saka didn’t feature on the scoresheet but took more shots than any other player and won five of eight ground duels.
At Napoli, Saka managed the most touches in the opposition box and took the most shots; of course, some accuracy on the night would have been appreciated.
At Sunderland, the Englishman again took the most shots in the match before winning and dispatching a penalty to seal the win — getting Reinildo booked and then sent off over the course of the game.
During the loss at Brighton, the Arsenal winger concluded with the most touches n the opposition box, the most chances created, and the most dribbles completed.
The more advanced underlying metrics also indicate that Saka has enjoyed an impressive start to the season. Two weeks ago, WhoScored declared the Englishman to be the highest-rated winger in the Premier League this season. They also reported that he had created the most xG of any player in Europe’s top five leagues, and has generated the second-most xG of any footballer in the Premier League as of September 20. Entering the current international break, Gradient Sports announced that Saka was their highest-graded player in the English top flight so far this season.
WhoScored@WhoScoredBukayo Saka is the highest-rated winger in the Premier League this season (7.60). 💫 11:30 AM · Sep 15, 2026 · 192K Views69 Replies · 622 Reposts · 4.64K LikesGradient Sports@Gradient_SportsThe highest-graded players in the Premier League this season, using our Overall Grade methodology 🎯 This is not a match rating, it is a piece of data science, manually grading the execution of every event on a scale from -2 to +2, with positional weights applied to ensure the …12:18 PM · Sep 22, 2026 · 567K Views50 Replies · 220 Reposts · 1.45K Likes
The truth is, Saka has been performing well for quite some time now. At the World Cup, he finished with six goal contributions, including a hat trick against France in the third place match. On the same pitch as Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Michael Olise, Désiré Doué, and Bradley Barcola, Saka became only the fourth player in history to score a World Cup hat trick for England. He joins Geoff Hurst, Gary Lineker, and Harry Kane in that regard.
During his month in America, Saka averaged 60 minutes per goal or assist. This means he scored or created a goal at the World Cup at a faster rate than Lionel Messi, Haaland, Dembélé, Kane, Olise, and Lamine Yamal. This is of course during a tournament during which his playing time was limited as he managed an ongoing Achilles issue.
Before that, Saka enjoyed a productive end to the Gunners’ 2026/27 campaign. In his final four matches of the Premier League season, after returning from an extended spell out with Achilles issues, he produced a goal and assist at home to Fulham before assisting the goal that ultimately won Arsenal their first title in 22 years. In the Champions League, he scored the goal that sent Arteta’s men to the club’s first final in that competition for two decades.
Definitely still hobbled by ongoing injuries, Saka pushed himself to help get his team over the line. In doing so he reached 50 goals and 50 assists in the Premier League in May, becoming the second-youngest player ever to do so after Wayne Rooney. Last season, Saka also became the second-fastest Englishman ever to reach ten Champions League goals after Harry Kane.
More immediately, his most recent match for England saw him score a brace during a 7-0 win against Croatia. Both scores displayed the traits that have come to define Saka’s game of late: the taking up of more central positions, clever box movement, and an increased eye for goal. What we’re seeing isn’t the demise of Saka as a winger, but the development of the Arsenal man as an inside forward.
But even then, even with a clear evolution happening before our eyes, even with a vast mountain of evidence showing well beyond dispute that Saka has been and still is operating at a fairly high level, fans who are simply too online will swear up and down that the Arsenal talisman has been ruined by injury. Without the appropriate licensure or training, people who simply do not know what they’re talking about will brazenly cosplay as medical experts. They will post clips of Saka doing something he very much is still capable of doing now, with a caption indicating in a few words that such athleticism is a thing of the past. Maybe they’ll throw in a flying dove emoji or two for good measure.
Now, I’m not a medical expert either. But the couple I talk to regularly assure me that the narrative people are forcing about Saka’s body being damaged beyond repair is just plain wrong. Perhaps he’s not a fast over short distances as he used to be. But it’s not exactly like he was ever a Gabriel Martinelli-esque roadrunner.
The fact is, players change over time. Saka isn’t the teenager so many still seem to view him as. He is 25 years old now. It would be more concerning if his body wasn’t different at this point.
One particularly significant difference has to do with Achilles tendinopathy. It is well-documented that Saka spent much of last season playing through pain caused by this condition, and other parts on the sidelines because he couldn’t. As I understand it, this is a chronic condition. It will come and go, but as long as he and Arsenal manage the issue properly, the club talisman should continue being an excellent player. However, this means that he will occasionally attempt to ignore discomfort and thus not be at the true peak of his powers.
Currently, however, that does not seem to be the case. He won a foot race against Olivier Boscagli at Brighton when he needed to and early on in the international break gave Marc Cucurella the runaround while on the ball. Right now, Saka is the fifth-most fouled player on a per-game basis across Europe’s top five leagues according to WhoScored. You just don’t do these things if you’re suddenly sapped of all athletic capability.
WhoScored@WhoScored🤕 Most fouls drawn per game in Europe’s top five leagues this season: ◉ 3.4 - Alex Scott ◎ 3.3 - Vinícius Júnior ◎ 3.2 - Jean-Victor Makengo ◎ 3.2 - Mandela Keita ◎ 3.0 - Bukayo Saka 11:30 AM · Oct 1, 2026 · 30.9K Views6 Replies · 26 Reposts · 564 Likes
Ultimately, there is little evidence — unless you count the conclusions of untrained eyes — that Saka has declined as an athlete or as a football. What has happened instead is that he has dealt with injury for the better part of two years, still managed to produce some solid output anyway, and now is becoming a different kind of forward while working his way back to full capacity after an Achilles inflammation. One who can still facilitate teammates at a high level, but also looks to get on the end of moves himself more often.
So respectfully, I find any narrative suggesting that Saka is anything worse than a still-productive attacker searching for an attainable elite gear in his performance rather irrational. But as I said at the beginning of this piece, fear is often irrational. And it can lead people to wrongly blame others when things go wrong.
I think people who feel this way are worried that the Bukayo Saka they knew, the young starboy who helped carry the club back to where it should be, who went from Hale End to Ballon d’Or shortlister, is gone. They have convinced themselves that this remote possibility is indeed the reality of the situation, in order to divest emotionally and avoid the heartbreak of that outcome. They have prepared for life after Saka.
But that hasn’t come. Instead, Saka has (rightfully) become the highest-paid player at Arsenal. He is now the vice-captain of the club, often finishing matches with the armband on. And Arsenal have still not signed that top-shelf forward to become the new face of the side. The Gunners’ attack still relies on the same key players, including one that a faction of fans have come to believe is past his prime.
As a result, I believe that his detractors blame Saka for the champions’ offense not being as glamorous as other units in England and Europe. They see a winger paid the most money at the club miss shots and conclude that their favorite summer target would surely have fared better. They’ve told themselves that it’s time for him to step aside and he hasn’t done so. And one of the constant themes of football fandom is that if it’s different than what someone has in their mind, it’s wrong.
Saka will likely continue to face the backlash for something he isn’t to blame for, as Justine Gandy was. But as was the case for Justine in her tale, if there is to be a successful outcome in the story of Arsenal’s 2026/27 season it will heavily involve their talisman. Most of us know that already. I hope that one way or another, the rest come to learn that as well.
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