“It means everything because these are records that go down in history,” Bukayo Saka says intently as he prepares to play his 83rd consecutive Premier League game for Arsenal against Fulham on Saturday afternoon. A seemingly random number took on fresh meaning for Saka earlier this week when, after a difficult victory over Crystal Palace, he was told that he had just equalled a record set by Paul Merson.
The Saka and Merson eras could hardly be more different. Merson, who played 82 successive matches for Arsenal between February 1995 and February 1997, once told me that, through the lost haze of his drinking and gambling addiction, he could hardly remember anything of his occasionally brilliant career. “That breaks my heart more than anything,” Merson said between the tears as he reflected on his harrowing past.
Ian Wright, who played alongside Merson in his record setting run of Premier League games, knows that Saka offers a profound contrast. In the summer of 2021, when Saka was only 19 and in the midst of lighting up the Euros with England, Wright said: “Everybody at Arsenal knows that Saka is burdened with glorious purpose.”
It was a way for Wright to fuse his love of the Marvel movies with his genuine reverence for the ambition, character and skill of Saka. Now, just days before he breaks a relatively innocuous club record, the glorious purpose of Saka continues with renewed intensity both on and off the field. He will soon talk about his commitment to help young entrepreneurs flourish in art and football, fashion and business, the “dream” of reaching the levels of consistency and resilience scaled by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and of Arsenal’s hopes of securing their first Premier League title in more than 20 years.
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But, first, Saka underlines the personal significance of Saturday’s game. “Obviously to be alongside Paul Merson and other legends that have played this amount of games is really special because Arsenal are a really big club,” he says. “We’ve had amazing players so to go down in history and have that record is really nice.”
That bland old word of “nice” does no justice to the scale of Saka’s achievement when he has been fouled and hacked down again and again since this current stretch of games began with him playing left back in a 3-1 victory over West Brom in May 2021. He is now a searing attacking force on the right and Saka reacts calmly to the fact he has become increasingly targeted. “I feel that it’s about perspective,” he says when asked about the threat of injury. “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.”
His outlook has been bolstered by Mikel Arteta who, last October, reacted bluntly when Arsenal fans wondered why Saka had played on after he fell to the ground in pain during a routine Europa League game against PSV Eindhoven. “He got a kick, he was limping a little but hopefully he will be fine,” the manager said before explaining his approach more fully. “Look at the top players in the world. They play 70 matches [a season], and every three days they make the difference and win the game. You want to be at the top, you have to be able to do that.
“If we start to put something different in the minds of our young players I think we are making a huge mistake. I want them to be ruthless every three days. They are going to be knocking on my door [saying]: ‘I want to play, I want to win the game.’”
Saka, who is itching to add Champions League games to the Premier League grind from next month, responds favourably. “Well, I think he has a point,” he says of Arteta. “The top players, when you look at recent years, that’s the amount of games they play. So it’s about making myself ready to be available and try to be on the pitch and help my team. There’s no point thinking about it negatively because if you look at the top players – Messi, Ronaldo – they play every game and there’s a reason why they score that amount of goals. So [Arteta] definitely said something true.”
He will turn 22 next month and, considering his rate of progress over the last two years, Arteta expects Saka to show considerable improvement in the coming seasons. Does Saka allow himself to consider what it will take for him to, one day, compete for the Ballon d’Or? “Obviously you always have that as a dream,” he says, “but I just try to focus on the moments I can control right now. How can I help myself, my club and country to win. I think those things [individual awards] come if you achieve that. Of course it’s not easy. But nothing worth having is easy. So you have to be willing [to sacrifice]. It’s about how much you want it.”
Saka adds that Arteta’s intensity “definitely inspires me. It’s really helped me develop as a player and as a person and demand more from myself and my team-mates. You can see that’s why we’re going to another level and, hopefully, we can go to even higher levels.”
In terms of his own improvement he says: “I’m always trying to work on my heading, and understanding in the game as well. The more you play, the more experienced you get, the wiser you get and the smarter you get in terms of understanding each phase and the specific moment of the match. So there are things I can definitely improve on. There are more and more things from a team perspective as well, but I’d rather keep that in-house.”
Last season Arsenal led the Premier League for 248 days – setting an unwanted record for the longest period of being top of the table by a club that failed to win the title. They stumbled in April and May and watched helplessly as Manchester City became champions again. “I learned my lessons from last season, we learned the lesson as a team,” Saka says. “When you lose you also learn lessons. The combination of the wisdom we gained and the pain we have in us will definitely be of benefit for us this season in terms of giving us energy and motivation.”
But surely it can be draining and even dispiriting when Pep Guardiola’s light-blue juggernaut win game after game, title after title? “No,” Saka counters, “it’s not hard to remain positive, because last year it was in our hands and it’s still in our hands right now. We have 36 games to play and it’s about coaxing ourselves into trying to win each game. If we win a lot of games we’ll be close to the top again.”
Can Arsenal win the Premier League this season? “We are working towards that every day. So, yeah, that’s what we all want to achieve. But we have to do more of the talking on the pitch.”
A gritty 1-0 defeat of Palace, when reduced to 10 men amid the fevered atmosphere of Selhurst Park, was the kind of victory that Arsenal will need consistently this season alongside their more fluid passing game. For Saka, “it’s definitely a confidence boost that we can get those wins on those difficult nights”.
He is just as convinced when suggesting that Declan Rice, Arsenal’s £105 million (€122m) record signing, “adds a lot. It’s quality, leadership, desire. He’s just everywhere and he’s going to be a really big addition for us. You can already see the impact he’s having on us.”
Rice was the best player on the pitch on Monday and, like Saka, he will fulfil a yearning to play Champions League football for the first time next month. “It’s very exciting,” Saka says as he anticipates the draw next Thursday evening. “I know for a fact I’ll be watching.”
Alongside these giddy heights in football, Saka reveals that he is now working with a company called Fiverr to “support young people so they launch their business ideas and make a positive change in their communities.” It’s a bold scheme which Saka believes can have “a huge impact” as he and Fiverr provide the help that artists, designers, charity and community workers need to turn their creative ideas into successful enterprises.
Malachi Simpson is one of the 10 people Saka will be supporting and his story resonates with the Arsenal player. Simpson was part of the Brentford academy when his brother was killed. Lost in anger and grief, Simpson drifted away from his dream of becoming a professional footballer. But, before his world imploded completely, he realised that he wanted to help others in his community. He founded The Streetz Football, “a safe space for athletes to come together and build positive habits and aspirations.” Simpson has since helped 20 players, from disadvantaged backgrounds, earn professional contracts with league clubs.
“Obviously our journeys were different,” Saka says of Simpson, “but I definitely could understand what he went through. I had friends who had similar pathways when they got to a certain age at an academy and they had to stop or they got released. I’m really proud of [Simpson] and the way he’s worked for it. He’s done really well for himself and the community and it’s great to see.
“There’s a funny story as well because, at the start of the year, I did a giveaway of some laptops and he was actually one of the people that won a laptop. So it was a mad coincidence that when I came to Fiverr I met him and he explained about winning a laptop. Now, with this project we are doing, Fiverr have the resources and the mentors to guide them and give them different tools to help grow their organisation. This idea is mainly for young entrepreneurs who are trying to help in the community. It’s a special project.”
“If you look at most successful businesses, they all started with a powerful idea. Lots of young people out there have loads of amazing ideas. They just need help turning that idea into a business organisation and Fiverr are helping them grow to the next step.”
Saka believes that this work also keeps him grounded. “It’s definitely nice to remember where I came from [Greenford in west London] and most of the people on the scheme have similar backgrounds to me. So it helps me to come back to the real world because you can get caught up in football. I like to see what they’re doing in the community and for the community.”
Saka has real empathy for many of the young people who follow him so ardently. He is now friends with Teddy, a little boy from the Isle of Wight who was just eight when he wrote a heartfelt note to Saka after the terrible racial abuse the Arsenal teenager had suffered after missing a penalty in the shoot-out in the final of the Euros against Italy in 2021. “I hope you are not sad any more,” Teddy wrote to his hero. “If you was here with me I would buy you an ice cream from the ice cream van with my pocket money and then we would play football in the park and I would let you win.”
Teddy put his pocket money into the envelope which he then posted to Arsenal. His family did not expect a reply but Saka wrote to Teddy. They swapped letters and video messages and Saka grins when I ask him about Teddy. “I keep in touch with him. He sent me a lot of videos and they’re always so nice to watch. He’s come to two games and he’s coming this weekend. So I’ll see him again.”
Saka will have his new club record to savour after the Fulham game and he looks affronted when I ask if he considered any of his many other options before signing a new contract with Arsenal in May. “No,” he says firmly.
A renewed sense of community is palpable at Arsenal home games now and, Saka says, “me and all the players feel the support in the stadium has increased a lot. It’s helped us so much in different games and that’s the biggest thing I’ve noticed [about Arsenal’s resurgence]. It’s lifted us and helped us get games over the line and get the three points.”
Just before kick-off on Saturday, Saka and his team-mates will gather in a tight circle as Arsenal’s new anthem, an adaptation of Louis Dunford’s song The Angel, with its “North London forever” chorus, booms around the stadium. “We hear it,” Saka says, “and I like it.”
Saka may also think of Merson and Wright just before his record-breaking game where, once more, he will try to show his “glorious purpose”. He looks up and smiles. “Yeah, that was nice,” he says of Wright’s words. “I just try to be myself and do what I want to do.” – Guardian
