Bukayo Saka injury history

Bukayo Saka’s undiluted addiction to football has been prevalent since his schooldays.

After Arsenal won the race to sign a nine-year-old Saka, fending off competition from Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Watford among others, the impish winger didn’t tell his new club that he was still playing for his school team before training with the Premier League side each evening.

“That love of football,” Saka argues, “is the most important thing which helped me become successful.”

Saka may look like he should still be wearing his school uniform but the baby-faced winger has been a fixture of Arsenal’s first team over the last four years. A remarkable durability even in the face of constant blows from opposition full-backs has underpinned Saka’s ascent.

Data via Transfermarkt

No player attempted more take-ons in last season’s Premier League than Saka, giving unfriendly opponents ample opportunity to take aim at his blur of legs. Even when he does take a whack, Saka tries to plough through the attempted tackle more often than not – which helps explain how he averages less than one foul won per half.

Yet, despite the churn of crashing limbs each weekend, the threat of injury doesn’t loom large in Saka’s mind. “I feel that it’s about perspective,” Saka told The Guardian at the start of the 2023/24 campaign. “It’s not just me. Ask any player. As soon as you go on the pitch, you have the risk of being injured. You can either feel positively or negatively about it. I choose to think positively.”

Saka’s estrangement with the treatment room at Arsenal or England only bolsters the positive slant he can take on his health.

At the end of August, Saka broke Arsenal’s record for consecutive Premier League appearances with his 83rd on the spin against Fulham. Throughout the entirety of two consecutive campaigns (2021/22 and 2022/23), Mikel Arteta didn’t let Saka rest for a single top-flight appearance. No other outfield player across the division could match this feat in the same time period.

Heading into the 2023/24 season, the last time Saka was forced to sit out a match through injury was all the way back in the summer of 2021, when a dead leg ruled the England international out of the quarter-final of Euro 2020 against Ukraine in Rome. Four days later, Saka was back in the starting XI for the semi-final at Wembley and duly forced an own goal from Denmark’s Simon Kjaer with a devilish low cross.

Gareth Southgate became a fully signed-up member of the Bukayo Saka Appreciation Society that summer – even if the tournament ended in penalty heartache for the nation and Saka in particular. The England manager has been desperately reluctant to leave his star pupil out of any subsequent squad no matter how much of the previous club match he limped through.

On the eve of the October 2023 international break, Saka was forced off injured in three successive Arsenal matches. Even as doubts loomed over his involvement in the club’s final game before the window against Manchester City, Southgate stubbornly called Saka up.

“The clubs have trust in us that we make decisions that are right for the long term whenever we can,” Southgate explained. “We only have ten matches a year. And there’s been times when … Bukayo, for example, hasn’t always played.

“But there are certain key games where, if it’s possible to have your best players, then you do want to have them. We’ve got that responsibility of qualifying for the country but … I’ve been a player … I’ve never, ever taken a risk on a player’s physical wellbeing. And nor would I.”

Saka hasn’t endured a serious injury layoff just yet but at 22 – and after an unrelenting churn of football from a tender age – there is every chance that the workload catches up with him.

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