Arsenal: Bukayo Saka cannot step back now

Bukayo Saka’s starting spot in the Arsenal team is now under danger with Alexandre Lacazette returning to the fold. After breaking into the first XI, it is key he does not take a step back now.

It has been a remarkable rise for 18-year-old Bukayo Saka. Starting the season barely on the fringes of the first team, Saka quickly emerged not only as a viable option that Arsenal head coach Unai Emery to turn to but a player that could start on a weekly basis.

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Since Alexandre Lacazette suffered an enforced month-long absence to rest his ankle and Saka impressed greatly in his first start of the year, a 3-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League, in which he scored and assisted, the Hale End graduate has forced his way into the Premier League XI.

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Saka has started the last three Premier League matches. When chasing goals late in games, Emery has withdrawn £72 million club-record signing Nicolas Pepe before Saka. The teenager also did not start in the EFL Cup win over Nottingham Forest or the Europa League victory over Standard Liege. For all intents and purposes, he is a first XI player.

But during the international break, Lacazette returned to first-team training. Arsenal’s Player of the Season from last year, the Frenchman will start in the centre-forward role once he is fit and able. In turn, that should see Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang move to the flank, should Emery persist with the 4-3-3 shape that he has used for the majority of the season thus far. Saka’s role in the team, therefore, is under threat.

Give credit to the young prospect. He recognises this and is willing to work for his place:

"“Yeah. It is always good to have all our best players available, all of us competing makes us push to play better and better. If one player is injured then others get an opportunity but I want everyone to come back and do the best for Arsenal. The boss knows what I can do, what the other players can do. Different games require different players but I feel like I’ve shown the boss he can trust me. Whatever game he puts me I’ll always give it my all.”"

If Saka is to establish himself as a genuine star of the future, he cannot afford to take a step back. How many times have we seen young players burst onto the scene with a series of explosive performances, only to then lose their place in the team, never to regain it, eventually sliding into mediocrity as the years tick by?

That is a gloomy way of rolling forward for Saka and his development. But professional football is relentless, insatiable, forever unsatisfied. No player can rest on their laurels and presume their place. They must earn it. And that goes for Saka, too.

He is a special talent, a winger of terrific ability with a bright future. But he needs to stay in the team to make good on his potential, even as Lacazette is welcomed back into the fold.