Arsenal Needs Bukayo Saka Against Chelsea
Arsenal’s long Chelsea streak is on the line this weekend, and for all the talk about defensive steel and tactical evolution, one truth cuts through everything at the Emirates right now: they need Bukayo Saka more than ever.
From soft underbelly to brick wall
The last time Arsenal lost to Chelsea in the League feels like a different era. August 2021. The afternoon when the visitors’ team sheet looked more familiar to today’s Arsenal fans than Mikel Arteta’s own.
Kai Havertz led the line in blue. Kepa Arrizabalaga waited on the bench. Jorginho patrolled Chelsea’s midfield. All three have since passed through or arrived at the Emirates, while the home side that day has been almost entirely dismantled.
Gabriel Martinelli’s departure this week strips that XI down to a single survivor in red and white.
Bukayo Saka.
Back then, Arsenal’s backline resembled an old shed door in a storm. Rob Holding and Pablo Mari were the centre-backs, Cedric Soares and Kieran Tierney the full-backs. Chelsea walked through them with ease.
Fast forward to now and the picture could not be more stark. Arsenal’s defence is their superpower. Two games into their title defence, two clean sheets. Coventry and Aston Villa have managed just one shot on target between them against David Raya.
This is no longer a side that needs to win 3-2. It’s a side that can suffocate you.
And yet, the real question for Sunday isn’t about the brick wall. It’s about the man expected to light the fire at the other end.
Saka, the last link – and the looming test
Saka is the only player in this Arsenal squad who has actually lost to Chelsea in an Arsenal shirt. He started that 2021 defeat on the left wing, a small detail that now feels more interesting given the ongoing debate about who should own that flank in Arteta’s current system.
Since that day, he has faced Chelsea nine times and scored just once. That record jars when you consider how central he has become to everything Arsenal do.
He will fancy changing it.
Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea arrive with one of the most dangerous attacking trios in the division. Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Joao Pedro bring invention, goals and a constant threat between the lines. They will test Arsenal’s structure in a way Coventry and Villa simply could not.
But for all their flair, Chelsea have been generous at the back. Fulham scored twice on the opening weekend, Brighton hit three the following week. The three-at-the-back shape leaves gaps wide and in transition. Those are the spaces Saka lives for.
If Jorrel Hato starts as a more defensive wing-back, his job will be simple in theory and brutal in practice: stop Arsenal’s No7. Few have managed it for 90 minutes.
The superstar debate
The summer passed without the marquee forward Arsenal chased. The talk since has been relentless. Are they one world-class attacker short? Do they lack a true superstar in the final third?
Saka has listened to all of it.
The narrative says Arsenal are missing that ruthless, headline name who guarantees numbers so the defence does not have to bail them out every week. When Arteta was asked on Friday whether he already has a world-class attacker, his answer was affectionate but hardly emphatic.
“I love my players, that's all I can say,” he replied. “In that bracket, how you want to put them, I don't know.”
Saka will know exactly where he wants to be placed. Thierry Henry certainly does. The club legend set the bar publicly on Monday night: 15 goals and 15 assists in a single Premier League season. That is the level he expects from Arsenal’s No7.
Saka has started like a player determined to get there. He scored the winner against Aston Villa after finding the net on the opening night against Coventry. Both goals came from him attacking the six-yard box, drifting in to finish crosses or pounce on loose balls. That penalty-box instinct is new territory. If it sticks, it changes everything.
The Achilles problem that hampered him last season and at the World Cup has eased. He looks lighter, sharper, angrier in the best possible way. Arteta felt it immediately when Saka returned in pre-season.
“I noticed that straight away,” the manager said. “This happens in your career and you need certain motivation, or a little pinch sometimes, to take it to a different level. And there are really good signs that Bukayo is giving to think that is going to be the case.”
Familiar faces, higher demands
It helps that the cast around him feels familiar and finely tuned. Ben White has started every game at right-back, the pair’s understanding down that flank bordering on telepathic. White underlaps, overlaps, or simply holds his position at exactly the moment Saka needs him to.
Inside, Martin Odegaard has been close to his best, constantly popping up in those tight pockets that drag defenders away and create the half-yard Saka thrives on.
Arsenal did not land the transformative attacker they chased. Vinicius Junior, the type of player many supporters dreamed about, remains a missed target rather than a new reality. So the solutions have to come from within.
Saka is the obvious answer. He is the one who can still go up another gear. In 2024-25, he scored six league goals; the season before, only one more. If he stays fit and maintains this new penalty-box aggression, those numbers should not just be beaten, they should be left behind.
A London derby with extra edge
Sunday is more than a derby. It is an early stress test of Arsenal’s title defence and a chance for Saka to land a blow on his England team-mates Palmer and Rogers, both heavily admired at the Emirates earlier in the summer.
Asked what he made of Chelsea’s new look, Saka kept it short: “We’ll see on Sunday.”
The answer will not just come from Palmer’s movement, Rogers’s runs or Pedro’s finishing. It will come from whether Saka can turn a controlled, disciplined Arsenal performance into a decisive one.
The defence has already shown it can hold. Now the onus falls on the last survivor from that 2021 defeat to prove he is no longer just the “starboy” but the talisman a champion side leans on when the margins tighten and the stakes rise.
