Absolute jewel.
To reach those levels, three things stand out for me: More protection from Arteta and get a decent RW in the squad to ease load where appropriate (I'll ride with Nelson/Pépé); more protection and a better understanding from refs of his physique and playing style; a system where his average position is a more advanced, more in-field (i.e. closer to box).

We're delusional if we expect THESE refs to start protecting him more. It's not going to happen.

Saka's incredible though. That video almost brought a tear to my eye.

5 days later

Not sure what award this is, but since they all attended I assume it's something somewhat known. Good for them. Saka would be my winner, but then maybe we wouldn't have gotten all three awards. 🙂

    I’m happy with the winners. This is Saka’s second young player award. Congrats to all three men. A preview to the season awards.

    QuincyAbeyie Saka would be my winner, but then maybe we wouldn't have gotten all three awards.

    Saka best players, Martinelli best young.

    Ode deserves recognition as well though so what they chose is fine.

    Øde is one of those guys who won't win too many of these, because there will usually be some showboat with higher GA or a fancier hairstyle, so I'm glad he picked this up. As a pure footballer he's class, must be one of the best technicians Arsenal's ever had.

    Øde and Saka—two guys who've spent the whole season making each other better. It's a good year to support the best football club with the greatest history in the biggest city in the country with the strongest league.

    QuincyAbeyie Not sure what award this is

    It was started up by Bob Wilson to fundraise for his charity, Willow.

    I have to say if we go onto win the league I don't think you could argue much with all of these guys winning the national awards.

      goon the best team sweeps everything. We are the best team. We just need to survive April with no major slip ups. If we make it out of there with only one loss, it’s as good as ours.

      Well, a few wins will be required in April too.

      We only lost 3 games in 2007/08, but the spate of draws we accumulated in the immediate aftermath of Eduardo's injury at Birmingham properly killed us.

        RocktheCasbah that's the bonus in not relying on a single goal scorer like we were with Adebayor though. Our 3 top scorers are all evenly distributed, and we've got 3 more now coming into the side in Jesus, Trossard and ESR who all have decent goal scoring pedigree too.

          goon Oh, absolutely - no arguments there. I was just making the (obvious) point that it's not enough to not lose our games in April. With 18 points for grabs, if we could somehow manage to take all 18, we would be almost home and hosed. 6 draws and the world will look very different indeed.

          QuincyAbeyie bloody Aliadiere! Thanks for the reminder, he scored the opening goal for Boro in a 1-1 draw at our place too...

          “Honestly, I love him. I’d just love it if he was my child,” Luke Shaw said during Euro 2020 — and somehow it didn’t sound weird.

          😂 It is weird, but I think I said "If I had a daughter, I'd like him to marry her" the other day so I've got your back this once, Luke.

          9 days later

          Nice round-up from The Athletic about how Saka is world class, at what stage of his career a gaggle of sports writers figured that out with some good little memories, and about how he's England's favourite son.

          https://archive.md/PEIvP