Last summer, Arsene Wenger came into the Arsenal dressing room.
Despite having made his debut under Unai Emery a few months after Wenger left, Bukayo Saka came up to the man he called “boss” and asked what he could do to improve.
According to Tim Lewis, Arsenal’s executive vice-chair, Wenger replied dryly: “I think you could use your right foot a bit more.”
Saka has perhaps the most potent left foot in the Premier League but has previously been a predominantly one-sided threat: last year, nearly 80 per cent of the shots he struck were with his left foot, despite playing on the right side of the front three.
But could the explosion in form that leaves him on track to break Kevin De Bruyne and Thierry Henry’s joint Premier League assist record be down to a more balanced approach? (They both managed 20 in a single season, Saka is currently on pace to nearly double that figure.)
“It’s something that was probably more continental and European, the fact that you were two-footed and comfortable on both feet,” John Salako, a left winger with a rare ability to cut inside and use his right for England and Crystal Palace in the 1980s and 90s, tells i.
Truly two-footed players are a rarity even now: Santi Cazorla used to take corners with right or left foot depending on which side he was on, Ousmane Dembele reportedly says he isn’t sure which of his feet is stronger, and Son Heung-Min once scored more goals in a season with his “weaker” left foot (12) than his “stronger” right foot (11). But they are still the exceptions and not the rule.
When Salako was cutting his teeth, it was almost unheard of, and until the age of 16, he was a far less versatile player. Then Palace boss Steve Coppell, one of Salako’s idols, wandered over and asked how many times he could juggle a football.
A couple of hundred, Salako demonstrated – but all with his left foot. Coppell, who self-effacingly regarded himself as a one-dimensional winger in his own playing days, insisted Salako should be able to use both, and offered him £10 if he could come back and do a hundred alternating between his two feet.
“Challenge accepted!” Salako says. “I came back a week later and did the 100, took his tenner and that’s how it started. Steve very much gave me that philosophy – and I did realise that if you had the ability to be able to come back on your right foot and pass and follow, or cross with your right foot, or come inside and shoot with your right foot, it would really change things.”
Saka’s own development has been similarly game-changing. He has increased his percentage of shots hit with his right foot from as low as 20 two seasons ago to 27 per cent this campaign, a gradual shift that was already starting to pay dividends in the second half of last season.
At Burnley, in February, Hannes Delcroix tried to show him down the line, only for Saka to rattled the ball into the roof of the net with his right foot. A month later at the Emirates, left-back Tino Livramento was forced to cover off the credible threat of the right-footed strike, but overcommitted, and when Saka cut back onto his left he was powerless to stop him scoring.
And then against Liverpool last Sunday, he burst down the right-hand side in the opening minutes, charging credibly towards the byline before dragging the ball back between the pursuing Andy Robertson’s legs and firing high into the net with his left.
Those defenders, probably, are damned if they do or don’t. Their instinct is to deal with the winger at the byline or en route, but the challenge of Saka creates doubt.
“You’ve got to try to show them down the line,” one Premier League full-back explains, asking to remain anonymous.
“You might stop them nine times, but then just that one time they get to come inside and they get their shot off, that one time could be the time they score.
“That’s what you’ve been training all week, preparing for that winger. If he comes inside, [coaches] will say ‘We told you, he comes inside. You’ve got to stop that. That’s all you’ve got to do.’
“I’m personally quite quick, so I always try to let the winger try and run me down the line. I’ll show them down the line, and then try and get them to to get in a foot race. That’s how I’ve always tried to defend.”
Whichever way he gets in though, Saka is a more regular attacker on goal overall this season. He has averaged 3.7 shots per 90 minutes in the league this season, a full shot a game higher his career average of 2.7 and still higher than last year’s 3.3.
There are far more crosses than before too, completing more than twice as many “key pass crosses” per 90 minutes as in previous seasons for Arsenal.
Saka’s 2024-25 stats
- 27 per cent of shots with his right foot (up from 20 per cent two seasons ago)
- 3.7 shots per game (up from 3.3 last season)
- Twice as many key pass crosses per game
Part of that is the fact that Saka has become a crucial part of Arsenal’s finely tuned set-piece machine, delivering in-swinging corners from the right-hand side with relentless accuracy, but it is also another product of his right-footed threat creating more space for his left in open play.
“That [in-swinging] curling ball into the far post is such a danger, because you drop it in behind the defence, and it’s so hard to defend,” Salako explains.
“But it’s such a hard ball to play as well, because it’s not a very big distance, and it’s such a tight angle to drop that in there.
“Usually, when you’re in that position, you’d almost sort of be standing that up as a header at the far post, or you would see a run and reverse it in behind the defence for someone to run in.”
Those crosses now have a bigger target too: last year’s regular striker Gabriel Jesus, 5ft 9in, has only started one Premier League games up front for Arsenal this season. Instead, Kai Havertz has become the go-to man, all 6ft 4in of him, and has hit a rich seam of goal-scoring form with four in his last seven appearances.
If Havertz isn’t there, opposite winger Gabriel Martinelli has learned that arriving late at the far post when Saka has the ball often pays dividends, just as he did against Southampton, when Saka cut inside past not one but two defenders to pick up yet another assist.
“It was an unbelievable ball from Bukayo and I was there to score. It was a really good moment for me and a nice goal,” Martinelli said.
“He’s unbelievable, and one of the best players in the world right now. He’s a really nice guy as well so we’re really happy to have him here as one of the captains.”
The only concern, if there be any, is whether Saka can sustain the pace of his career. He missed the trip to Bournemouth, but has never missed two Premier League games in a row and returned to score against Liverpool.
Arteta pointed out that he has youth on his side, making such comebacks a little easier, but at the age of just 23, he has played a staggering 283 professional games.
“There is not one flaw in his game, there’s no flaw in his game,” said former Premier League midfielder Don Hutchison last week.
“He’s durable, he gets stuck in, he limps off with five minutes to go in a game, but he’s fit for the next one.”
And the next one, and the next one, and the next one. No one has yet worked out how to stop him.
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