A major English soccer team is disappointing its millions of fans with their star player injured.
At the age of 23, Bukayo Saka has become the main star at Arsenal FC, scoring 52 goals and giving 44 assists. The England international came off with a hamstring injury in the first half of Arsenal’s 5-1 win against Crystal Palace on Dec. 21. Leave the stadium with crutches, the injury put him out for many weeks with a grade 2/3 hamstring injury. Since then, Arsenal’s performance has noticeably declined, and the team has been playing at a much lower level in his absence.
Arsenal FC, a Big Six team in the English Premier League, finished second last season, just two points behind first place. However, they are struggling this season, winning only 13 out of 23 games and currently sitting six points behind league leaders Liverpool FC. Arsenal have been very good over the past couple of years and someone who has helped them do so well is Bukayo Saka, a young right winger from London, England, who first joined Arsenal’s youth team when he was only seven years old. Saka now gets paid an annual salary of $10 million for playing with Arsenal.
According to BBC, Arsenal has better performances when Saka is playing.
“The Gunners’ 2-0 defeat at Bournemouth in the Premier League and their 1-0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League were weak performances from Arsenal. They also score more goals and concede fewer on average when he is in the team, though the win percentage is similar – 57.2% when he plays compared to 56.2% when he doesn’t.”
In The English Premier League, Bournemouth sit 12th and Shakhtar Donetsk, who play in the Ukrainian Premier League, are 27th in the Champions League, which should be easy wins for Arsenal as they are much better than both of these teams. They were close games, though, which shows how Arsenal is underperforming.
Eden Dushekenov is a supporter of rival team Manchester United, and hates Arsenal.
“I believe that most of the squad is overrated and are underperforming for the value they have on the transfer market,” Eden said. “Players like Declan Rice, Martin Odeegaard, and Kai Havertz are worth more than 100 million each yet they perform worse than many Sunday league players.”
Eden is saying that the players on Arsenal who were bought for many of millions are not playing to there expected level. He goes to show this by saying that some Sunday league players, which is the worst league in all of England, are at some of Arsenal’s team’s level.
Enzo Benetti, who loves to watch the Premier League, says that Arsenal struggle to attack when Saka does not play.
“I don’t think there is anybody on Arsenal that can replace Saka because he was able to create many chances on attack that helped Arsenal score,” he said.
He believes that Bukayo Saka is hard to replace because he creates many assists and dangerous attacking chances when he is on the field.
Luis Gene Creel, who loves watching Arsenal play, says that Kai Havertz should do better.
“Someone who is underperforming in Arsenal is Kai Havertz because he is supposed to be very dangerous in front of goal but he is struggling to score and does not get many chances to do so in game,” he said.
Luis says that Kai Havertz is not playing to his expected level as he is not scoring many goals and he is not dangerous to the opposing team when he has the ball at his feet.
Runny Obiero, a soccer player from Kenya who supports Manchester United, says that Arsenal should work on their attack.
” I think that the weakest part of Arsenal is the attack because they can not score goals and it is hard to score without their main goal scorer injured, ” he said.
Bukayo Saka has contributed a lot to Arsenal and without him Arsenal struggle to score and the results they put up could be much better.
