Concerns Over Bukayo Saka's Fitness Ahead of England's World Cup Challenge

Bukayo Saka looks broken. Not technically, not in the sense of a scan or a medical report, but in the way that matters most to England right now: his edge, his energy, his spark.

Gary Neville has seen enough football and enough tournaments to recognise when a player is running on fumes, and his alarm over Saka’s condition cuts through the usual summer optimism. The Arsenal winger, still only 24, is carrying a persistent Achilles problem that the FA’s medical staff have had to track carefully throughout this World Cup in North America. The injury has stalked him for months. It has followed him here.

Thomas Tuchel has treated him like a fragile asset. Saka has featured in all three group games, but only from the bench, his minutes carefully rationed rather than unleashed. This is not the ever-present, relentless wide man Arsenal lean on every week. This is a player being managed, protected – and, in the eyes of some, pushed too far.

“Bukayo Saka doesn’t look right at all,” he said. “He’s usually the boy that's bubbling and smiling, he's got that competitive edge to him, but he's not right and that's a concern to us, I think.”

The word “concern” does a lot of work there. For Neville, it’s not just about a dip in form; it’s about a fundamental change in the player’s demeanour. The smile, the bounce, the constant demand for the ball – all dulled.

Ian Wright went a step further. For him, the question is not just whether Saka is fit enough to start, but whether he should have been here at all.

Saka himself admitted before the tournament that he was “happy to gamble” with his fitness. That gamble now looks brutally exposed. Wright sees a footballer who has been emptied by a punishing domestic season, one that saw his minutes heavily managed by Arsenal during the Premier League run-in. The pattern has continued into the summer: reduced workloads, early substitutions, long spells watching from the sidelines. He has not regularly completed 90 minutes for months.

“We’re going into a World Cup, and still not starting the first few games, only starting when we’re three games in, and still isn’t looking like the Saka that we know – this guy needs a break,” Wright said.

It’s a stark line. A break. Not a rest between games, not a lighter training session. A real pause.

The anxiety around Saka is amplified by a wider problem in Tuchel’s team: the wings, traditionally a source of English hope and chaos, have fallen flat. Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke have had their chances. Neither has seized the tournament by the throat.

The result is an England side leaning heavily on Jude Bellingham’s surges from midfield and Harry Kane’s moments of precision. When the ball goes wide, the fear factor drops. Defenders can square up, stay on their feet, trust that the one-on-one threat is manageable. The tempo dips. The pitch feels smaller.

Roy Keane, never one to sugar-coat, sees a danger that goes beyond aesthetics. For him, the lack of end product from the flanks is the kind of flaw that gets punished brutally once the knockout rounds begin.

“The wingers need to grab their opportunity. These players haven't quite grabbed their opportunity yet,” he said. “In the group games, you can maybe slip up in one of them, but now at least one of them has to start turning up.”

That is the reality facing England as they head into the last-32 tie against DR Congo in Atlanta. The margin for error shrinks. The luxury of carrying half-fit stars or out-of-form options disappears.

The draw, on paper, offers both temptation and threat. Navigate DR Congo and the route begins to harden: Mexico or Ecuador potentially waiting, then a quarter-final that could pit England against Brazil. Survive that, and the reigning champions Argentina may loom in the semi-finals.

Wright, ever the believer in English attacking talent, can see a path through at least part of that gauntlet.

“I think if we can get to Brazil we could probably beat Brazil,” he said. “But then I think we’d have problems after that. I said England would reach the semi-final from the start.”

There’s hope in that, but also a ceiling. A semi-final as the limit, not the launchpad.

Keane doesn’t bother with the caveats. When the conversation turns to Lionel Messi and Argentina, his verdict is ruthless.

“England would have absolutely no chance of beating Argentina in the semi’s, I just can’t see it.”

No chance. Not a puncher’s shot, not a lucky break, not a one-off performance. Nothing.

Strip away the emotion and the message from all three pundits converges on the same point. If England are to challenge the true heavyweights of this World Cup, they cannot do it with a half-fit Saka and a supporting cast of wingers still searching for themselves. They need incision from wide areas, runners who stretch defences, players who commit full-backs and force mistakes.

At the moment, they have questions. Over Saka’s body. Over Gordon and Madueke’s impact. Over Tuchel’s ability to coax something sharper, braver, more ruthless from his wide men.

Atlanta will offer the first real answer. If the wings stay quiet there, the argument about Argentina may never be tested at all.