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New Deal for Saka and Thoughts on the UCL Semis

WATCH: Star boy Saka scores stunning long-range goal for Arsenal in  thrilling clash with Man Utd | Goal.com

Bukayo Saka has been a model of consistency for the Gunners and at such a young age of 21, he is closing in on 200 appearances for the club. Since his breakthrough campaign in the 2019/20 season, Saka has featured across several positions before making the right wing his own, ousting the likes of Nicolas Pepe and Willian, who aren’t at the club this season. While the shaggy-haired winger moved to Fulham after a stint back home in Corinthians, Pepe was shipped back to France to play for OGC Nice, but he has failed to command a first team berth in the French outfit, which essentially means that he will be back in the club this summer, and with a year left on his contract, Arsenal will have to make a decision on his future.

This season, Saka has scored 13 Premier League goals and created 12 assists for his teammates, making it his personal best in terms of his attacking output to the team. He is the current Player of the Season for Arsenal, an award he won two years in a row. Saka has been on an upward trajectory, playing consistent football and getting better with each passing campaign. As the young lad aged, he improved in maturity and most importantly, his growing influence within the team. 

Season Appearances Goals Assists Goal Contribution
2019/20 38 4 8 12
2020/21 46 7 7 14
2021/22 43 12 10 22
2022/23 (ongoing) 44 14 12 26

From the table above, Saka’s goal contributions have continued to improve and significantly, his goals came in the Premier League, as Arsenal were unfortunate not to feature in Europe two season ago. This campaign, he made a couple of times in the Europa League, up until the club’s exit in the Round of 16 against Sporting CP.

I am proud of what Saka has achieved thus far in his fledging Arsenal career and with his age, there is so much more to come from him. With Alex Lacazette leaving last summer, penalties have been added to his repertoire, which would allow him score more vital goals like the spot kick he took against Chelsea in last season’s surge for a Champions League finish. This season, he scored high pressure penalties against Liverpool and Manchester City, but lost a vital one against West Ham. Despite that miss, Mikel Arteta confirmed that he will still take penalties when the opportunity arises.

The Independent has reported that Saka is close to signing a new deal with the club, which is awesome news. Saka has his best years ahead of him and having him for the foreseeable future will bode well for the team as he continues to his influence, emerging to talismanic status. Saka’s contributions this season, alongside his teammates, has seen the Gunners come back to the UEFA Champions League for the first time since the 2016/17 season, which will crown what has been an exceptional campaign for the club.

Speaking of Champions League, I geared myself up as a neutral to watch the semifinal clash between Manchester City and Real Madrid. A draw was a fair reflection of the performances from both sides, but the quality of the finishes on the night were exceptional and both goalies have to be lauded for their amazing performances that kept the tie at bay, causing both teams to share the spoils.

The Manchester attacking juggernaut, Erling Haaland, was surprisingly quiet, and you’d have to look no further than the performances of Antonio Rudiger and David Alaba in central defense for keeping the Viking chieftain in their pocket for the entirety of the 90 minutes. Manchester City had the lion’s share of the possession no doubt, but Real Madrid were able to show their class and experience, which makes the second leg at the Etihad Stadium a banger. 

The Champions League remains the most elite club competition in the world, and it is evident with the brand of football on display. With Arsenal finally set to grace the competition next season, Arteta and Edu have to use this summer’s transfer window to sign the right quality and quantity of players that would give the team the required depth to compete on all fronts.

Sayonara.

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The Red Hot Gnabry and the Not So Hot Chili Pepe

Image result for serge gnabry

Wingers. One of the most essential positions in modern day football, giving we the fans the viewing pleasure of seeing them make those mazy runs, breathtaking dribbles and of course, well taken goals.

When Arsenal signed Nicolas Pepe for the club record 72 million pounds, many of us didn’t know much about him but the internet offers such a vast array of knowledge that enables us to do our own research to satisfy those curiosities and boy, was I satisfied! 23 goals and 12 assists for those statisticians, then there were the videos of his overall play and insane dribbling skills. I have to admit that I didn’t really get a good glimpse of him for Ivory Coast in the African Cup of Nations, but I was still optimistic that he was going to be an awesome signing for us as he offered something that we lacked from an attacking perspective, and of course, the prospect of seeing him play alongside our deadly duo of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was mouth watering to say the least.

Seven games into the new Premier League campaign, and there are some mixed feelings about Pepe’s performances for the team. It’s not like he has been a terrible signing per se, but like Spiderman’s Uncle Ben famously said, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Putting it in this context, we signed Pepe for 72m and we expect 72m kinda returns from him. Using Arsenal’s alpha dog in attack, Aubameyang, as a case study, we signed him for 54m in January 2018. Since then he has scored 49 goals in 73 games (39 in the Premier League – joint most of any player in the division in that period with Mohamed Salah (39) and Sergio Aguero (33) coming close. Aubameyang has also had 11 assists in addition to his 49 Arsenal goals, which is 60 goal contributions in the 73 games, which totals 5728 minutes and if you convert it further, it’s one goal contribution every 95 minutes. This clearly indicates that you’d expect Aubameyang to score or assist in pretty much every game he plays, a stat that he has amazingly achieved in the Premier League this season.

Image result for aubameyang pepe

In Pepe’s seven Premier League games so far, he has scored only one goal from a spot kick (gifted to him by the lovable Aubameyang) and he has created one assist as well. He has averaged three shots per game, with 1.4 outside the box and 1.3 in the penalty area, 1.6 key passes with a pass completion percentage of 79%, 3.3 successful dribbles (including one on Virgil van Dijk that has turned out to be a big deal in some parts of the world). The player himself is aware of his current situation and voiced his thoughts,

“It has not been easy, I must tell the truth. My stats have not been good enough or my usual performances, it is not the same as Lille or the Liverpool game earlier in the season.

My confidence must come back. I am not very worried. People may be worried about my statistics but I am not. I have to keep working as the level here is different, so is the language. It is a new league for me and I must adapt quickly. But it won’t take very long.”

I’d say it’s not time to bring out the torches and pitchforks because the potential is out there for everyone to see. Pepe has been offered us that fear factor in attack and he does his bit to be creative for others. Yes, he had a stinker at Old Trafford only to be replaced by Reiss Nelson that wasn’t any better to be honest but I’m confident that he would be a massive success at Arsenal.

At least, he will be given a chance to show his worth at Arsenal, unlike a certain Serge Gnabry that is lighting fireworks in Bayern Munich. I remember when he earned his Arsenal breakthrough in the 2013/14 season in that win against Swansea at the Liberty Stadium. It seemed like the star was going to be his limit but that gruesome knee injury happened and a certain Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was in very good form. Following his rehabilitation and return from injury, he found things difficult in North London and things went from bad to worse when he was loaned to West Brom and Tony Pulis declared that he wasn’t good enough to play Premier League football.

So the club opted not to renew his deal and shipped him off to Werder Bremen for a measly 5m quid, but the lad found a new lease of life after shining at the Olympics and ended up with 11 goals in 27 apps for the Bremen based outfit. Bayern Munich came calling and as you’d expect from any young German, the answer was certainly yes, but they shipped up off to Hoffenheim after snapping him up from Bremen and he acquainted himself well, scoring 10 goals in 26 games for the club. With legends like Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery gone, as well as the failed pursuit of Leroy Sane, Gnabry was given a chance to stake a claim for the Bayern jersey and he has been impressive for the German giants, scoring 13 goals in his debut campaign for them. When you consider that he’s a young winger with potential, these are good numbers.

Fast forward to last night, Gnabry was on fire in North London, helping his team utterly destroy Tottenham in a 7-2 bashing, where he smashed in four amazing goals. It was highlight reel stuff, leaving defenders to eat his dust while he made mince meat of Hugo Lloris in goal. A good night for the humiliation of Spurs became even better when he went to his social media and stated that North London is Red. You can’t help but love it when ex-Gunners do such stuff.

Well, all focus would move to playing Standard Liege on Thursday and I’d drop my thoughts on that as we draw closer.

Sayonara.

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That Was an Amazing Comeback, but it Makes You Wonder…

For some reason I failed to rant like crazy following the capitulation at Brighton and thankfully, I’m happy I didn’t because it would probably had been a venomous affair, but with Arsenal frustrating me and other supporters out there, we turned into neutrals to watch the semifinal match between Liverpool and Barcelona. It was certainly an insurmountable task coming back from three goals down, and the fact that they were without Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino made things more difficult.

I’m certainly not going to give the commentary about the game here but after 90 minutes, they achieved the impossible, winning with four unreplied goals, which made me think – would my beloved Arsenal win Barcelona after conceding three goals away?

Sometimes, you gotta tell yourself the truth – Arsenal has devolved to a Europa League outfit at best. I remember when we were so spoiled into believing that finishing in the top four was our birthright but in the past two seasons, things have gotten really bad to the stage where it looked like Thanos snapped his fingers and our top four ambitions faded into space. It’s not like we are asking for too much as fans – just play well enough, as it should give you that edge when playing against perceived weaker opposition. But with Arsenal, it’s the opposite – if we are not wasting chances, we are gifting the opposition the ball to hurt us, or conceding needless penalties or just playing so badly.

Even with the likes of lethal forwards like Alex Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in our ranks, the Gunners continue to struggle to kill off games, or convert clear cut chances. I don’t wanna talk about what’s going on that the back – yes, Brend Leno has been an inspiration since he took over from Petr Cech but he has had his shaky moments which can only help him to improve in the future, but when you have a certain Skhodran Mustafi making calamitous errors with such consistency at the back, it makes you wonder whether Unai Emery doesn’t see these things as well.

I remember when Jurgen Klopp went to the final last season and his goalie from former club, Mainz, had such a shocker, allowing Real Madrid to waltz into their three Champions League in a row, he wasted no time in signing Alisson Becker from Roma, and he, alongside the imperial Virgil van Dijk of course, have contributed massively to Liverpool’s defense. Meanwhile, we continue to struggle with whoever Emery decides to field in his back line. Imagine a player as important as Laurent Koscielny watching as Kasper Schmeichel lofts a punted effort from his box straight to Jamie Vardy, or Stephan Lichtsteiner heading the ball to Jurgen Locadia when a throw in would have been a better option.

The season is over but the Europa League still offers a silver lining ending so we can only wait and hope that the lads don’t mess things up at Mestalla tomorrow.

Sayonara

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