Bukayo Saka in action for Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest
Photo by Maynard Manyowa/News Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Arsenal head to Anfield on Sunday without Bukayo Saka, and it’s going to be a while before we see him again.
The quad injury he picked up against Bayern Munich will keep him out for at least six weeks, and injuries have become a recurring problem over the last couple of years
Saka is only 25, but his body has been through more than most players his age. He already appears to have lost some of his explosive burst, and Matt Verri of the Evening Standard has made a convincing case that Arsenal have only themselves to blame.
Bukayo Saka’s Lionel Messi stat shows how hard he was pushed
By the time Bukayo Saka turned 22, he had made 212 senior appearances for club and country. Lionel Messi had made 200 by the same age.
Saka was the face of Arsenal’s first title challenge under Mikel Arteta, and he played whenever he was fit. In 2022-23 he started 37 of 38 league games and was rarely taken off early, even when the game was already won. He also came on for half an hour against Leeds with Arsenal 3-0 up. Was that really necessary?
But for a while, he looked indestructible. Before the start of the 2023-24 season, he had missed just three games through injury. Since then, he’s missed 48.
Arteta’s dismissal of those concerns in 2022 hasn’t aged well at all. “There is not a fitness coach in the world who is going to tell me that they cannot do it because I’ve seen it,” he said. Last week, he admitted Saka’s robustness has “certainly been different in the last year or so”.
Arsenal’s transfer failures have left Bukayo Saka exposed
However, it isn’t all on Arteta. He couldn’t rest Saka because the club never gave him anyone to rest him with. Willian, Fabio Vieira and Raheem Sterling weren’t good enough, and it took Noni Madueke’s arrival in 2025 for Arteta to trust someone else on the right. But even then, the Arsenal boss has been reluctant to use Madueke in the Premier League unless Saka has a fitness problem.
England haven’t helped either. Declan Rice pulled out of the last squad to manage his workload, while Saka played the full 90 minutes of a 7-0 win over Croatia. Saka has to take some responsibility for that himself too.
Arsenal’s failure to sign a top attacking player this summer was also short-sighted. Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard, two established and serviceable first-team players, both left, taking 19 goals and 18 assists from last season with them. Only Christos Tzolis, a relative unknown, was brought in to replace them, and he has two assists in seven games so far.
Arsenal are short of options for Liverpool
It’s not even November yet, and Arsenal are looking incredibly thin in attack. Tzolis is reportedly pushing to return at Anfield, and even though he has struggled away from home so far, Arsenal need him back. Arteta will also be hoping Madueke can shake off his ankle injury, while the verdict on Max Dowman’s red card appeal is still to come.
If all three miss out, Arsenal’s only senior attacking options are Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Eberechi Eze, with no natural right-winger.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that Saka’s absence will hurt the Gunners. And since 2020-21, Arsenal have won 64.2% of Premier League games he’s started and 53.3% of those he hasn’t, according to Sky Sports. Over the course of a full season, that could be around an eight-point difference.