Kevin Campbell has sniped at Stevie Nicol’s recent comments about Arsenal wonderkid Bukayo Saka, after he claimed that the winger came off the field under minimal contact.
The 20 year-old has been an enigma since breaking through into the first-team squad, thoroughly impressing under any challenge, starring in various positions to an extremely high level, and showing that he can follow orders better than many more experienced options.
Since breaking into the first-team at the age of 17, starting his first PL match back in September 2019, he has clocked up 117 competitive appearances for our side, winning the Arsenal Player of the Year award for his 2020-21 season.
In that time, he has only had minimal injuries whilst playing a high amount of fixtures, yet Nicol told ESPN that ‘he is a guy who doesn’t take an awful lot to come off the field.’
Kevin Campbell has defended our young star however, claiming Nicol’s comments were simply not true.
“The most important thing is to really analyse what he said because I think that’s the professional way,” Campbell told the Highbury Squad.
“He made some comments about Saka that just wasn’t true. At the end of the day, we are going to defend our player. But we are going to defend the truth.
“Saka has been ever-present. He is hardly ever injured. He’s just the nicest kid you could wish to have. There is nothing out there in the media that he is doing bad stuff or things like that.”
I think Nicol’s comments may have been swayed by the fact that Arteta does usually substitute our young star to protect him at times, and that decision is usually vilified when Saka remains available for the very next game on the majority of occasions, but I also disagree that he hasn’t been on the wrong end of fouls either.
Saka is and will continue to be targeted by the strong tacklers because he is a danger to them, and unfortunately it will likely become inevitable that he will pick up injuries because of that.
Do you think Saka can take a foul in his stride?
Patrick
Saka IS targeted that’s a proof that he is performing
Why a spoil an otherwise sensible and accurate article with a daft question to finish Patrick? How can ANY player “take a foul in his stride!” Good grief!
My word
It is still fresh in my head how we lost Diaby, in my opinion the most technically gifted player we ever had.
Some time these players are targeted tactically and they are premeditated.
Was hoping VAR would have clean it up a great deal, but there now seems mire questions than answers