Bukayo Saka: Rhythm is a Dancer

Bukayo Saka’s new Arsenal contract was confirmed this week. Objectively this is really exciting news announced during a time when Arsenal fans feel as though they have been collectively punched in the stomach. That, together with the fact that the contract has been trailed for a while via reliable reporting has given this news a touch of the Zubimendi effect.

The signing of Martin Zubimendi was a Christmas present opened early for Arsenal fans which made the confirmation, the announcement, hell even the weeks and months leading up to the signing feel anticlimactic to the point that the importance of it was almost entirely glossed over.

Chronology is a significant driver of emotion. If you draw a game 2-2 from 2-0 behind it feels a lot better than…perhaps it is best I don’t go there today. Saka’s contract arrives in the wake of new deals for Saliba and Gabriel and the final indication of faith in ‘the project’ from this group too. While we all might feel a little punch drunk this week, it is worth reflecting on the fact that these players are bought in.

However, as Andrew touched on this morning, Saka’s output has not been where most of us would have expected it to be at this point of the season. I think there are explicable reasons for that beyond Andrew’s point that when none of the attackers are firing, the problems are usually a little deeper.

In Saka’s case, I think health has been the biggest impediment to his output. The literal and mental scars of his torn hamstring last season still cast a shadow over this season, not necessarily in the player’s head (though I would understand if it took him some time to trust his body again) but in the way he is managed.

There has been some talk recently about Arsenal players getting injured in warm ups and I think that illustrates the extent to which Mikel Arteta and his staff have been extremely cautious about managing player fitness. They have a big enough squad now not to take any risks and I think the slightest sign of a muscle twitch out of place and they make the decision to withdraw the player.

I also think William Saliba’s 4th minute substitution at Anfield in August might have had an impact here. Saliba apparently felt a twinge in the warm-up on that day and started the game anyway, only to be subbed in the 4th minute. The Frenchman was out for three weeks. The fact that the hamstrings of Gabriel, Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka all exploded after Christmas last season has very clearly informed policy this season.

Arteta has opted for depth and cautious management. This has been a theme of Saka’s season too. He has completed the full 90 minutes in 16 of his 38 appearances so far in this campaign and has come on as a substitute 10 times. He is averaging 65 minutes per appearance. Last season he averaged 72 minutes per appearance (and in the final five weeks of the season he was managing his comeback from a long absence).

In 2023-24 it was 79 minutes per appearance, in 2022-23 it was 74 minutes (all this data includes England games). Arsenal spent around £50m on Noni Madueke last summer and it was one of the first signings they made, there has been a clear attempt to better manage Saka’s workload. Saka is one of the players to have limped out of a warm-up this season at Elland Road.

I firmly believe that in another season, Saka would have been patched up and played on. But with Madueke in reserve, Arteta felt less inclined to take a risk. While this approach has been modeled across the squad I think Arteta specifically wants Saka to be in peak physical condition for the ‘playoff’ section of the season after the March international break.

In the shorter term, I think this has cost Saka his rhythm. This is a player who is used to playing every minute of every game (which likely contributed to his hamstring exploding in the first place) adjusting to having that rhythm interrupted. That might serve him better in the long-term but, in the short-term, it is an adjustment for him.

Players bodies acclimatise to the workload they are given- if you look at attacking heavyweights like Ronaldo, Messi, Salah and Haaland, they are used to high workloads and are rarely injured. However, there is also a risk of suffering the fates of similarly gifted players like Ronaldo, van Basten and Neymar whose careers finished (either notionally or literally) at an earlier juncture than their talents merited.

As well as personal rhythm, Saka has been a victim to a general lack of rhythm in the Arsenal attack. While we have a very good idea that the likes of Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Rice, Zubimendi and Raya are going to be starting at the base of the team, further forward there are more choices and a sense that Arteta does not really know how to deploy them all yet.

What has happened around Saka has had an impact too, most significantly Martin Odegaard’s own struggles with injury and form. In Bukayo Saka’s starts this season, Odegaard has started as the ‘right eight’ seven times and on two of those occasions, he was withdrawn before half-time due to injury.

Saka has started with Eze as a right eight 10 times and I am not sure Eze operates best on the right side of the pitch, he is nowhere near as heavily involved in the game as Odegaard either. Saka has started the last two games in that position himself. I have to say the selection of Saka in that midfield position against Wolves felt a little desperate to me.

Moving your ‘franchise’ player form his usual position reasonably randomly does not feel like something a team that is about to win the league does- even if I can acknowledge the injuries to Odegaard, Merino and Havertz were a critical component of that decision. It feels like something a struggling team does (and it raises more questions about the signing of Eze).

The Saka-Odegaard-White triumvirate has been well and truly broken up with Timber playing the majority of games at right-back now into the bargain. Bukayo’s form is not immune to the striker situation either, where Jesus and Gyokeres play and perform intermittently.

Both are hugely different in terms of style and the rotation between them is consistent as well. As well as having little rhythm and consistency in terms of his own playing time, the certainty that either Odegaard is starting and performing every week or one of Jesus or Havertz is very likely to start upfront has been absent for Saka too.

We can but hope there is a long-term payoff for this- both in terms of Saka’s ongoing health and hopefully, eventually, Arsenal’s consistent rotation in attack will feel more like a healthy carousel than a desperate attempt to just make something vaguely work. Arsenal have a lot of good attackers but Saka is really the only one likely to achieve greatness. Greater rhythm in the final months of the season is a necessity to see him- and Arsenal-reach the levels they are capable of.