Why Bukayo Saka Is England's Most Important Player
Bukayo Saka's hat-trick in England's 7-0 win over North Macedonia marked him out as a major part of Gareth Southgate's side. But while he's got the ability to excel against the so-called "lesser nations" it's how important he is against the world's elite that matters.
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00:00 Hi everyone, Adam Cleary from 442 here and Bakaio Saka, he's just gone and scored a hat
00:08 trick for England and everyone's just really happy about that because he's just so nice
00:13 isn't he?
00:14 But nice never won anybody anything, alright?
00:17 You think I got North Tyneside Young Poet of the Year 1997 because I was nice?
00:23 I did not.
00:24 So I don't want to talk about how nice Bakaio Saka is, I want to talk about how good Bakaio
00:28 Saka is.
00:29 In fact, I want to talk about how he might now well be the most important player in that
00:35 entire England squad.
00:38 Alright so fundamentally the reason Bakaio Saka is so important to this England team
00:42 is because of that old cliche, there's no easy games in international football.
00:47 Now what that saying really means is that at this level you are either playing against
00:51 the elite of the elite, some of the world's best, in which case yeah fair enough, that's
00:55 gonna be hard.
00:56 But even when you're not, when you're playing against a team who are way down the rankings,
01:00 who are quote unquote minnows, modern conditioning, modern data, modern coaching is so good now
01:05 that they'll still probably be really well organised.
01:08 And thus if you use that as a building point and then just sprinkle in a little bit of
01:11 talent here and there, the next thing you know North Macedonia have just put European
01:15 champions Italy out of World Cup qualifying.
01:18 But England put them to the sword didn't they?
01:21 Bakaio Saka got a hat trick that made that game look as easy as falling off a chair.
01:26 Oh you, sorry are you waiting for me to fall off this, I'm not gonna fall off the chair,
01:30 just imagine it.
01:31 Anyway very conveniently for me all three of his goals in that game neatly illustrate
01:35 one of the really important parts about his game and why they're actually incredibly important
01:39 for what England are doing.
01:40 So let's take a little look at them.
01:41 So this is the start of England's second goal, Bakaio Saka's first, and it neatly illustrates
01:45 how he uses space so well.
01:47 You can see here that Macedonia are incredibly deep, they are incredibly compact, but Saka
01:50 is holding his position on the right hand side because obviously that's where the space
01:54 is.
01:55 Now you can see just off his body language what he wants to do is run onto a through
01:58 ball here, break into the box, leave the defender behind and get it across the face of the goal
02:02 for probably Rashford to tap it in.
02:03 But the ball from Kane isn't quite good enough for that so as he's stretching to receive
02:07 it he can't take it into his stride.
02:08 So instead what he does is he takes the defender down the byline without any intention to put
02:12 the cross in.
02:13 He cuts back in on himself to find a teammate but you can already see because he's forced
02:17 the Macedonian defenders that far back there's a lot more space now in the box.
02:21 He lays it off to Alexander-Arnold and instead of following the ball out of the space to
02:25 try and get back into the wide area to put another cross in, he instead turns his defender
02:29 and then just holds.
02:31 Now the obvious thing to do would be to move into this area here where there's loads of
02:34 space but because Macedonia have loads of defenders back someone would just very easily
02:38 see that and pick him up.
02:39 So instead what he does is he just slightly gets on his marker's blind side and then waits
02:44 there.
02:45 He's got his balls going back out wide so naturally that's going to stretch those defenders
02:49 towards where that is.
02:50 So if he just holds his position, if he doesn't move, the space will appear around him instead.
02:55 And even though it's only a couple of yards, Kyle Walker's ball back to him is good enough
02:58 and his first touch is also good enough that he then finds himself with about three or
03:02 four yards of space in the box when previously he had none.
03:05 And just as for that finish, that's the third time I think I've seen him score that goal
03:09 this season.
03:10 He got one against Everton and one against Leeds and it doesn't get any less fun to watch
03:14 the more it happens.
03:15 So for the second goal you're probably thinking I'm going to say something about that absolute
03:17 thunder bastard of a strike and how he's got this really good ball striking ability and
03:22 I am.
03:23 That is a very important part of what he does but believe it or not this sort of volley
03:27 looper zoom goal is more about space as well.
03:30 So again he's holding his width on the right hand side, he's trying to stretch the Macedonian
03:34 defence as much as he possibly can.
03:36 And because they won't want to leave Kane one on one at any point at the top of the
03:39 pitch this means there's this huge gap is then created between the left back and the
03:43 left sided centre back.
03:44 Now with them pressing up quite high to try and just disrupt England's build up that means
03:47 there's not only loads of space in behind which is a fairly common thing that often
03:51 happens but there's also loads of space in the half space.
03:54 I've mentioned it in a few other videos but if you're not sure what half space is it's
03:58 basically just like if you imagine any part of the pitch that you would not class as being
04:02 central and you would not class as being wide.
04:04 It just sort of runs top to bottom it's those two bits that aren't either.
04:08 Anyway it's really important because if you can land a ball in there it means that you're
04:11 close enough to goal you can do something but not so close to goal that the goalkeeper
04:15 is likely to sweep it up.
04:16 And that is something that Bakao Saka is excellent at doing of pulling a defender out into the
04:20 wide areas to leave room in the half space knowing because he's got all that pace he
04:25 can kill them running into it.
04:26 Now yeah granted it doesn't always happen that a ball comes out of centre midfield and
04:30 is just that pinpoint accurate and it allows you to bounce it and then volley it.
04:35 That doesn't always happen but the fact is it does and his first touch is excellent.
04:40 It takes out the first defender then his second touch is really deft and really subtle and
04:44 then the hard part just hitting the bloody thing he does perfectly.
04:49 And Arsenal fans will tell you quite happily that he has that in his locker.
04:52 He scored a few absolute raspers for them this year.
04:55 And the third goal is pretty much the same thing again he just approaches it slightly
04:58 differently he holds his position out really far to the right he creates that area in the
05:01 half space Macedonia don't learn but instead of looking to get a ball over the top he just
05:05 gets in front of the defender gets clean through and he scores.
05:09 And the reason Pikaio Saka is so important is because he just has this mastery of space
05:13 on a football pitch either by just finding little pockets of it in congested areas or
05:18 by deliberately in the build up forcing it to happen by pulling players out of position.
05:22 Thing is right that's only half the story when it comes to Saka because like if you
05:25 look at the left hand side for England right now there's probably a conversation to be
05:29 had about whether or not it's better to start Jack Grealish or Marcus Rashford.
05:32 You see Grealish not unlike Saka is very good at holding his position out wide forcing a
05:36 bit of space pulling defenders around and allowing things to happen that way.
05:40 But Rashford as you saw against Macedonia can just burn past you can go on the outside
05:44 and go on the inside he can force things to happen in a far more direct way.
05:48 But the reason Saka is so important is because he has both of these things in his locker.
05:53 Arsenal fans won't thank me for showing this game but the 3-3 against Southampton yes famous
05:57 for many other reasons but Saka's assist in that game is one of my favourite things I've
06:01 ever seen him do.
06:02 This is at 2-0 I think and while you can see again that Saka's pulled the full back over
06:05 into this area to create some room in the half space the defender is side on to him
06:10 he's not going to allow him to run into that and there aren't any Arsenal players who are
06:14 likely to do it either.
06:15 And if he wants to cut back onto his left foot to put a cross in then Southampton have
06:17 a 4v2 in there so they are really well set.
06:20 You can see here that neither of the two Arsenal players in the box or even Urdegaard on the
06:23 edge are looking to break past a player and get in front of him.
06:26 They're not going to win a header at the near post they're not going to arrive late at the
06:28 back post and have a tap in they're just kind of stood there not knowing what to do.
06:32 The Southampton defenders are not currently defending the six yard box because there is
06:36 no danger in the six yard box.
06:38 So what Saka does is he bursts past the defender on his weaker foot and gets to the byline
06:42 because that then makes the most dangerous area the six yard box.
06:46 Now every single one of the Southampton defenders has to react and has to desperately try and
06:51 get back to cover that space right in front of the goal.
06:53 But Saka does not put it in that area where the danger now is he puts it in the area they
06:57 have all just vacated.
06:59 It's a great finish from Martinelli but if you look at how much room he has when Saka
07:02 is weighing up his options versus how much room he has when he gets the ball that's not
07:07 a lot of players do that you know.
07:09 So look right the bottom line with Pikaio Saka is that whether it's through his incredible
07:13 technique whether it's through his direct running his pace his power his just ability
07:17 to create and exploit space he makes things happen.
07:21 Now that's great when it's in the Premier League or it's against a team like North Macedonia
07:25 but what's so important for England is that Saka is capable already at 21 of doing this
07:30 at the very very highest level.
07:32 Like it gets forgotten in amongst the whole Harry Kane Mr Penalty story but against France
07:36 at the World Cup Saka was England's best player by a mile.
07:41 Now you've probably forgotten about this because it was so long ago but he gets England that
07:44 first penalty almost single handedly.
07:46 England get the ball to him out wide he carries he carries he's waiting for something to happen
07:50 he finds a one two pretty much out of nothing inside the box Hernandez and Rabiot he leaves
07:55 them both and that forces Xhuemany to come across make a rash challenge and give away
08:00 the penalty.
08:01 Doesn't matter who he's playing against he just makes things happen.
08:04 So look I'm not going to go so far as to say he's probably the best right sided attacker
08:09 in world football right now but if you said that to me what I would probably just do is
08:16 agree with you so not the same as saying it but it sort of is isn't it a bit.
08:23 Oh and I was also going to do loads of stats and graphs for this just showing like how
08:26 many take-ons he does and his progressive carries and all the stats and numbers but
08:30 it's just it's the eye test with Saka he's so so good to watch you don't need you don't
08:35 need the graphs.
08:36 Put it this way every graph I was going to show you he was either at the top or literally
08:39 was the top so there you go.
08:41 Anyway there you go that's why Bakayo Saka is so good and so important for England and
08:45 it's okay yes just a circle all the way back to the start of the video.
08:50 He's really nice as well and that's great but as ever very interested to know what you
08:54 make of all this so the comment box is right there please unload all opinions all of them
08:58 welcome and of course you can get me on Twitter if you want to continue the conversation @AdamClearyClery
09:03 I'll say hello.
09:04 In the meantime though thank you very much for watching if you haven't already subscribed
09:06 to 442 here on YouTube this is the kind of thing we do all the time except I do normally
09:11 have more graphs and stats and sometimes I use the pitch as well but I just didn't think
09:15 you needed it this time.
09:16 In the meantime though thank you very much for watching stick around why not watch some
09:19 more videos they'll release the good chemicals and I'll see you next time.