Tony Adams: Bukayo Saka is second only to Lionel Messi… Arsenal should build entire side around him to conquer Europe
WHEN Manchester City paid £100million to sign Jack Grealish 18 months ago, I couldn’t believe that they didn’t even try to buy Bukayo Saka.
Even now I’m gobsmacked that Arsenal have been able to hang on to a kid who is already one of the best talents in the world.
Hopefully, they will soon get Bukayo tied down to a lengthy new contract, so I can stop worrying.
Like me, he’s a London-born Arsenal fan who graduated through the academy and has the club in his blood.
But even though the Gunners hierarchy are pretty confident he’s never going to leave them, they should never take that loyalty for granted.
If Arsenal hadn’t shown the level of commitment I was looking for at the time, I would have been out the door like a shot when Manchester United wanted to buy me in 1996.
But they proved their ambitions by signing Patrick Vieira and Nicolas Anelka and that was good enough for me to sign on the dotted line.
Now Mikel Arteta and the board have to convince Bukayo to stay by going big again in the transfer market this summer.
Playing in the Champions League next season will be a whole new ball game for this Arsenal team.
And it’s going to be really difficult for the current squad to compete at that level while also challenging for the title.
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We all saw what happened when Mikel rested a couple of his big boys in the Europa League the other week.
The back-up players looked bang average and were played off the park by Sporting Lisbon.
At the moment they need Bukayo, Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard, Thomas Partey, Gabriel Jesus and Oleks Zinchenko playing every week because they have a team that almost picks itself.
But I’m sure they’ll give Bukayo that hefty new contract to keep him at the Emirates because they know he is irreplaceable.
If there’s a better player in world football at the moment, someone who both scores and makes goals, the only one I can think of is Lionel Messi.
Bukayo is absolutely on fire and the reason Arsenal are top of the table.
Erling Haaland might be scoring hundreds of goals for Manchester City and Marcus Rashford is also having a phenomenal season for United.
But Bukayo is, hands down, the Footballer of the Year because he was England’s best player at the World Cup and he’s been the best player for the team eight points clear at the top of the Premier League.
The first time I saw him was about five years ago in a youth team game at Forest Green and I could immediately tell he was something special.
I reached out to him straight away because I wanted to know who was looking after him, did he have a good family and a decent agent.
He told me: “I’m all right, Mr Adams, my family are good, this is OK, I speak to this person.”
I knew then he would go a long way.
We’ve kept in contact ever since and I reached out to him after he missed that penalty in the shootout in the Euro 2020 final.
He appreciated the contact and the next time I saw him at the Emirates he gave me a big hug.
If there’s a better player in world football at the moment, someone who both scores and makes goals, the only one I can think of is Lionel Messi.
Tony Adams on Bukayo Saka
He’s such a lovely boy, so respectful and polite. The kid has talent but he also has brains.
And he still calls me ‘Mr Adams’.
I still don’t understand why Gareth Southgate took him off 15 minutes from the end of England’s World Cup quarter-final against France.
Mind you, I’m still baffled that Gareth, Arteta and Unai Emery have all tried to play him at left wing-back at one time or another.
It was interesting that England didn’t pick Ben White for this week’s Euro qualifiers against Italy and Ukraine after he came home early from the World Cup.
I can understand Gareth thinking he has better right-backs available but I don’t think White will give a monkey’s.
He likes what he’s doing at Arsenal and he likes the players he’s playing with, so he’ll just get on with it.
He claims he doesn’t really like football but some guys I played with used to say that too.
It’s a defence mechanism and some young guys need that.
Fine, it’s only because they care.
In my early career I much preferred going to the pub than joining up with the England squad because I was scared of being in that environment and I wasn’t comfortable in those surroundings.
There were a lot of very big characters looking out for themselves and it was a real dog eat dog world.
I was thrown to the wolves after the 1988 Euros and there was no one putting an arm around my shoulders like I did with David Beckham and Michael Owen when I was England captain ten years later.
And on top of all that I had the illness of my addiction at the time, which is why I was always so keen to listen to George Graham when he would tell me I was injured and should pull out of international duty.
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Mikel will know just how George felt after losing Jesus to injury during the World Cup and then seeing Rodri’s tackle on Odegaard the other day.
He wants everyone fit and available for the title run-in because, even though Arsenal have a big lead going into April, they still have no margin for error.
