Bukayo Saka's Quest for Consistency: Goals and Injuries

Bukayo Saka has spent five straight seasons in double figures. For most wide players, that would be enough to sit back and admire. For him, it feels like the baseline.

He hit 20 goals in 2023-24 and, for a spell, looked ready to plant himself among the game’s true superstars. A Hale End graduate on a steep, relentless climb. Then the landscape shifted. Lamine Yamal exploded onto the scene, Michael Olise raised his ceiling, Vinicius Junior kept redefining what an elite winger looks like. The bar for wide forwards has rarely been higher.

Saka’s own ascent has stalled not through talent, but through timing and bad luck. Injuries have cut into his rhythm, stripping away that sharpness which once seemed permanent. Across the last two seasons he has missed 40 games for club and country, his World Cup campaign in the summer of 2026 also disrupted by fitness problems. The engine that used to run without pause has been forced into too many pit stops.

Now he wants a clean run. No niggles, no setbacks, just football.

Alan Smith, the former Arsenal striker and First Division title winner, believes that is all Saka really needs. Speaking to GOAL in association with BestBettingSites.co.uk, Smith was emphatic when asked if the England international can rediscover his best level.

“I don't think there's any reason why he shouldn't return to his best form,” Smith said. “Injuries just can rob you of rhythm and confidence. But if he gets a good period clear of injury now and he can have a good run of games, you'd expect him to come back up to the levels that he was at. No reason why he shouldn't.”

Arsenal will demand exactly that. Mikel Arteta’s side spread goals around the team, but they still lean heavily on Saka’s end product from the right. There has been no big-money reset up front this summer, no new headline centre-forward. Instead, the club are backing Viktor Gyokeres to kick on in his second season at Emirates Stadium after the Swedish striker scored 21 goals in all competitions last term.

Smith sees promise there, but not a transformation.

“It is so important that Saka can add more goals to the side,” he said. “Certainly, as well as playing well and creating goals, which he's very good at.

“Gyokeres, I wondered what was going to happen with him this summer. Something still might happen, but it's his second season and he got into the 20s for goals in the first, all in. So that's no mean feat. Maybe he'll step up.

“I don't think he's going to become a different footballer, a more sophisticated footballer. He is what he is. But maybe his team-mates know a bit more about him now and can service him better. So yeah, keep our eye on that one. But we obviously need a functioning goal scoring centre-forward.”

That last line underlines the tension around Arsenal’s attack. They have a wide forward who has already shown he can hit 20 in a season. They have a striker who has proved he can score, but not yet that he can carry a title challenge. The margins at the top of the Premier League are thin. Saka’s goals, and Gyokeres’ evolution, could decide where Arsenal land.

All of this plays out against a familiar backdrop of transfer noise. Arsenal have been heavily linked with World Cup winner Julian Alvarez, now at Atletico Madrid after leaving Manchester City, but no agreement has been reached. The idea of dropping a proven, hard-running, multi-functional forward into Arteta’s system is tempting, yet it remains just that: an idea.

On the flanks, the rumour mill has spun just as hard. There has been talk of a move for Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola. There were even surprise links to Real Madrid superstar Vinicius, the sort of name that usually lives in fantasy rather than feasibility. Still, the message is clear: Arsenal are exploring ways to ease the scoring burden on Saka, or at least share it more evenly.

The transfer window closes on September 1. By then, Saka will hope to be back in stride, driving at full-backs, numbers ticking up again. Whether he is doing that with a new partner on the opposite wing or with the same cast around him, one truth remains: if Arsenal are serious about climbing that last step, they cannot afford a version of Saka stuck in neutral.