Bukayo Saka Wrecks Standard Liege, Earns Applause From Arsenal Coach

Arsenal of England youngster, Bukayo Saka has gained words of applause from The Gunners’ interim boss, Freddie Ljungberg, following the youngster’s brilliant performance and goal in their UEFA Europa League clash with Standard Liege of Belgium, megasportsarena.com reports.

Although Ljungberg recalled that Saka initially showed some misgivings when he was told to line out in an unusual role for the game in Liege, which eventually edn3d 2-2, the Swedish gaffer said the Nigerian-born kid did well to adjust and make his personal mark on the encounter.

Ljungberg added that Saka played a key role of inspiring Arsenal’s fight-back, as he gave an assist to Alexandre Lacazette before his equalizer proved enough to seal top spot for the London club and a place among the seeds in Monday’s last-32 draw.

Man y Arsenal fans had also been taken aback when Ljungberg deployed a back three defence line in the game, with Saka forced into an unfamiliar left wing-back role, but the Nigerian-born youngster came good, on a night his Swede mentor took a bit of a gamble by fielding many kids.

It looked tight, as The Gunners kept an eye on Sunday’s English Premier League clash with Manchester City and still looked to secure top spot in Group F but, midway through the second half in Liege, the gamble looked to have backfired – with Standard two goals to the good and Eintracht Frankfurt of Germany beating Vitoria Guimaraes of Portugal in the game’s other group.

Finishing second in the group – and potentially drawing the likes of Inter Milan and Ajax – was looking more and more likely, until Saka intervened, and buttressed the role played in his career uplift by Ljungberg, who coached a number of Arsenal youngsters during his time with club’s academy, has played in his development and the 18-year-old stepped up for his mentor.

Saka, who has assisted six goals for Arsenal in all competitions this season, two more than any other Gunners player, first set up Lacazette with an inch-perfect cross before exchanging passes with Gabriel Martinelli and picking out the far corner to bring his side level, and Ljungberg was left thrilled by his performance.

Ljungberg said: “I think he was a bit upset with me before the game that he had to play wing-back and then full-back because he doesn’t like it so much! But no, he’s a tremendous talent and you could see it here again. His final ball and the last bit is always effective.

“I felt sorry sometimes for our young players because a lot of them have not been on loan. So they haven’t got that exposure to play 90 minutes of men’s football for a longer period of time. So I felt in this game that I wanted to get them on the pitch to get that experience.

“I know how good they are but they just don’t have experience and some of them, yes, they made some mistakes. But I think from those mistakes they won’t redo them and that’s invaluable for them and we won the group. Bukayo did tremendous to go back to that.”