Saka: Page 30 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Saka

Big Willie

Sicario2 No I won’t. Will be man of my word. I’ll tell you what, I’ll allow him to have one average/bad game v Bayern but he has to be decisive in at least one of them. Deal?

Will he then be world class? If so will he then have to prove it again in another "big game"?

Burnwinter

Claudius Shakhtar seemed partly to force a Chelsea move over Arsenal for reasons of politics and familiarity … if you recall, the Shakhtar oligarch fella was promising to convert a big chunk of Mudryk's fee to a donation to the war effort, or something similar.

I reckon the trajectory of the deal had a lot to do with the optics and intangibles as well as the timing, anyway. I have a hunch Abramovich being forced to sell off Chelsea would've been popular in Ukraine. Abramovich himself was doing everything possible to distance himself from the invasion at the time.

Burnwinter

Claudius Read this article.

Read all that at the time amigo.

Read my post. Then refresh your memory concerning the concept of overdetermination.

Burnwinter I reckon the trajectory of the deal had a lot to do with the optics and intangibles as well as the timing, anyway.

If an event has various interacting causes but only one that can be attested by journalists, only that cause is reported. You're well aware there's often more to things, which is all I'm speculating about.

Claudius

Read this article. Shakhtar say we offered the same amount as Chelsea overall. But Chelsea were willing to pay earlier and guarantee more of the money.

https://www.goal.com/en-za/news/explained-why-mudryk-joined-chelsea-over-arsenal-despite-offering-identical-gbp89m-transfer-fee/bltd34f3d4bfe52ecc4

Gazza M

feel like we need to have a little conversation about saka. imo his numbers are masking a bit of stagnation in his all round game. what always set him apart was his all round game - decision making, composure, workrate, defense, link up play. all aspects of his game a I feel have stalled or declined this season. I never really wanted him to become a typical English goal chasing winger, like rashford.

Sicario2

Gazza M

He’s not world class

awooga83

I agree, he's also got penalties which help up those numbers. He's clearly a player who contributes a lot to our play. But for the calibre of player I think and hope he is it isn't enough to just do one thing in the match. We are set up for him to be the main player but he hasn't been able to do that enough over this season and has too often been very quiet.

Qwiss

He's being asked to do it all because we have no one to play CF. Its not Sakas fault teams can double up on him every week. Same thing happens Martinelli now too. The solution is to have a threat in the middle.

Meatwad

Qwiss
but a real threat in the middle isn't going to put up with the defending arteta demands from his #9. no top team can carry passengers, but everyone being camped out in our half is an entirely different story.

RocktheCasbah

Think Saka looked a little tired today, but also the majority of the time we saw him in the second half, be was making defensive contributions covering back and making tackles.. He still nearly scored and put in 2 beautiful crosses which could have resulted in goals in the first half.

Wonder whether there's a little over emphasis on his defensive actions and it's taking away from his strengths in the final third. Also, as I said to my uncle, it's hard to create chances when you haven't got the ball. We didn't really have it in the second half.

Big Willie

RocktheCasbah even in the first half he was way back at right back when Villa were building out from the back. I found it strange then we he almost has to play as an auxilliary fullback rather than staying high, before realising he wouldn't be doing it if he wasn't instructed to do so.

Gurgen

Saka has to do two or three jobs in this squad. He’s really the least of our problems. Get a proper forward in there and watch him explode.

Tam

Big Willie there was a point he was very deep and pinned back by someone (Digne?) being high up, then someone moved across to their lb area and Saka looked to move up and was either given a shout or realised he couldn’t go.

Claudius

I feel like Saka is having a good season. Outside Odegaard, he’s usually the one who we look to to spark our offense. He’s constantly taking double teams and taking the game to opponents. Was very involved in the first half when we looked good.
For comparison, he’s on 31 G/A (5 pen)for the year versus 32 for Foden in pretty much the same minutes. Foden shoots more, Saka carries more and defends more.

awooga83

Claudius has Foden taken any pens? I think my worry would be in our team I would presume he's supposed to be our elite forward,I don't think there is anyone else who I think would be instead. So if that's what we are building so he is our Salah or whatever in time we need more from him, he needs to be more of a threat and it would be better if he could be a counter option. We don't do that at all really and you need that in your armoury I think.

It's not critical if he's plateaued a bit, but much of our attack is driven to him and the right and I don't think we've been seeing enough from it. Maybe this thing with him managing an injury is also causing problems.

Claudius

Claudius I feel like Saka is having a good season. Outside Odegaard, he’s usually the one who we look to to spark our offense. He’s constantly taking double teams and taking the game to opponents. Was very involved in the first half when we looked good.
For comparison, he’s on 31 G/A (5 pen)for the year versus 32 for Foden in pretty much the same minutes. Foden shoots more, Saka carries more and defends more.

Combination of things. Seeing Saka in person, how much easier the game is for him than the players around him, and then looking at these numbers made me realise this chap doesn’t get half the respect he deserves. He’s basically matching Palmer, Salah and Foden on offense; while still putting a defensive shift. The kid is special and I wish he got more recognition. He’s much better than Foden and Palmer.

Qwiss

Sicario2 scored against Bayern in the CL quarter finals and I was reliably informed that's how you know if someone's world class.

awooga83

Tam this is the way Arteta is, he had Auba dropping back to defend. He doesn't accommodate you have a player like Saka who we need to be hurting the team the other end. But his tactics are everybody gets back first then we sort out what we do for attacks.

Tam

awooga83 yep, but strangely enough gives Zinchenko a free role to pop up wherever he likes on the pitch, without a care for structure or shape in the transition. Lost count of the number of times I seen him miles away from the left-back/midfield area you’d expect to see him operate in. And we all know fine well what two of those times were

Qwiss

awooga83 Salah has 2 more goal contributions than Saka this season and does far less work in the rest of the game, especially defensively. Contrary to what people imagine in this thread the stats still show Saka does a ton of work outside of his final 3rd game.

I don't really get these criticisms tbh. In the first half yesterday Saka was excellent just didn't get his goal. He did get a brilliant goal against Bayern this week though. I don't know what people expect from him. It's more Sakas we need in this team if anything.

awooga83

Qwiss I meant symbolically, Salah now is no doubt in decline his best years are done I'm talking more about peak Salah and the talisman he was for the team.

I agree he's probably asked to do a lot more defensively and it probably takes away from his attacking game to an extent.

Don't get me wrong he's a very good player but I want, and still believe he can be, a player of that top tier and I think that he is likely to excel in an attacking way so it's that where the extra judgment comes. He's no doubt a great player but I want him to reach that rarefied top tier and there is a lot more demanded of you for that and influencing, it even outright saving your team on some of these down days. Again totally fair to say it's a high bar but I think that's what comes with that player. He's not in anyway the main issue with the team but we need a talisman and he's the guy I'm hopping can develop into that role but the level of consistency of output is high for those types of players.

« Previous Page Next Page »