Bukayo Saka celebrates during Arsenal vs Coventry City
Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Bukayo Saka’s goal against Lille on Tuesday night took him to 14 Champions League goals for Arsenal.
That puts him fourth on the club’s all-time list, one behind Theo Walcott and four behind Robin van Persie, having already moved past Cesc Fabregas and Freddie Ljungberg on 13. To nobody’s shock, Thierry Henry is out on his own at the top with 35.
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We asked fans on Talking Points where they’d rank Saka among those names, and the conversation quickly turned into something bigger. But before anyone could decide where Saka sits, there was debate around whether some of the players on that list are actually legends.
Arsenal fans debate who counts as a club legend
Not everyone thought Arsenal’s top Champions League goalscorers list was full of legends, with one user singling out Ljungberg and Walcott specifically.
Others drew a line between being loved and being a legend, and Walcott, despite scoring over 100 goals for Arsenal, was again in the firing line.
I think outside of being tenured and being a bright spot during a fairly tough time, I’m not sure why Walcott would be considered a legend. Maybe a great or a cult hero, but an Arsenal legend? The bar is very high
Another fan had a hot take on Robert Pires, reckoning that the Frenchman got a better rep than Ljungberg because of his long hair, and that the two were actually a similar level. Meanwhile, Fabregas was questioned by a few fans arguing that joining Chelsea ruined it for him.
Plenty jumped to the defence of Ljungberg, though, who won the Premier League Player of the Season award when Arsenal won the title in the 2001/02 campaign, and of course, he played an integral role in the Invincibles side.
Bukayo Saka will certainly go down as an Arsenal legend
Whatever side you take on the likes of Walcott, Fabregas and Ljungberg, there’s far less disagreement when it comes to Bukayo Saka. The 25-year-old is the only player left at the club from when Mikel Arteta took over in December 2019, and he’s been the face of the project ever since, making over 300 appearances for the club.
Saka has now won the Premier League, the FA Cup and three Community Shields with Arsenal, and he scored the huge semi-final winner against Atletico Madrid that sent the Gunners to the Champions League final last season. He’s also won Arsenal’s Player of the Season award twice. Only Henry has won it more, with four.
Whether he will actually catch Henry on the scoring list is a different debate. It will take some doing, but at the rate he’s scoring at in the Champions League, it’s not entirely out of his reach.
In fact, remarkably, he matches ‘The King’ in that regard. Henry scored his 35 goals in 77 Champions League games for Arsenal, a rate of 0.45 per game. Saka has 14 in 31, which is also 0.45. Add assists and Saka comes out ahead, with 0.74 goal involvements per game to Henry’s 0.68.
If he keeps up that rate, Saka needs around 47 more Champions League games to reach 35. That’s roughly four seasons of deep runs in the competition, which would take him to the end of his current contract in 2030.