Arsenal: Bukayo Saka can bury the lingering Serge Gnabry spirit

I still haven’t recovered from Arsenal’s loss of Serge Gnabry, but if we keep hold of Bukayo Saka, then Gnabry can finally be left in the past where he belongs.

Take your Robin van Persie and your Cesc Fabregas and your Samir Nasri. I don’t care. Arsenal had seen the best of them, they left and continued their careers elsewhere. Fair game. I’m not bitter about them anymore.

It’s always been Serge Gnabry that keeps me roiled. Mostly because unlike the aforementioned list (and it’s a bigger list than that), I didn’t hold it against Gnabry. He was woefully mishandled and I completely understand why he wanted out of England. Even if he remained a Gooner.

Plus, the great big open world of potential he had was torturous to lose, and it remains torturous to watch unfold at Bayern Munich, where he’s proven to be just as good as we always suspected him to be.

Moving on from something like that isn’t easy when it’s still happening not so far away. It requires serious effort to push past, and it’s not like Arsenal haven’t tried. They’ve brought in players young and old, but none have been able to bury the lingering spirit of what Gnabry could have been here.

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Then Bukayo Saka came around. And, to be completely fair, Gabriel Martinelli too. But I’m focusing on Saka because of his incredibly quick rise from the Hale End Academy to where he is now at the heart of the club.

It’s not every day a teenager from Hale End rises from the depths to steal the stage. Gnabry did it, though. Now Saka is doing it too. And if Saka continues to do it, I could see him being the shovel that finally puts the Gnabry woes to rest.

But that’s the thing. Saka can only do that if he’s here. If he runs off to another Premier League side, it would only serve to exacerbate the Serge Gnabry wound. We don’t need that. Please, not that. We have to keep hold of him, locking him down with whatever money he asks for, because he’s just that good. Same as Gnabry was. Just watch the Bundesliga if you don’t want to take my word for it.

Saka already carries a lot of power, but being able to let mishaps of the past fade away is just another target he can hit as his quest for superstardom continues.