Klaus wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
He's light years ahead of the rest.
Do you rate Saka righer than Smith-Rowe?
When I said ahead of the rest, I meant the players in the youth sides currently getting lots of hype: Amaechi, John-Jules, Coyle, Greenwood, Balogun etc.
I haven't seen as much of Saka as I have Smith Rowe, and they are very different players, but the latter has such a spread of ability. The kid has two good feet, can pass, shoot, dribble, carry the ball, has very good composure in front of goal, an impressive awareness when a creative pass is on, and on top of all that, he's six foot plus, a super athlete and has a great burst of acceleration that will underpin very good pace when he fills out.
Saka was hugely impressive in his Europa Legaue start at the Emirates. Beating experienced footballers, even jouneymen, takes some doing at 17, and he did it repeatedly that night. He's also the youngest in the U23s and, along with Joe Willock, the best performer. He's really impressed me this season: Explosivenes is the biggest change. This time last year both Arsenal and England were experimenting by trying him at left back. That's obviously not a good sign, but I think he's just so quick and explosive now that his moving back into defence doesn't make sense any more.
He has nothing like the ability across the board that Smith Rowe has, but he's devastating one-v-one and has scary speed. The rest of his game is raw but he shows signs of good intelligence and game understanding. He's improving at a really good rate, let's see what he can do against Premier League defenders before we get too excited.
Smith Rowe is the bigger talent in my view though.
