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Player reportPremier League 2026

Bukayo Saka

Arsenal
Balanced wide forward W
wing 69% · inside 31% — no dominant lane
Capability Analysis
Wide Delivery43%vs 7 wingers
"Does he create danger from wide areas -- crosses and cutbacks?"
Crosses /900.00%
Cross accuracy: 0.0%
Cutbacks /903.586%
Chance Creation46%vs 7 wingers
"Does he create real chances for others?"
Expected assists /900.05xA14%
Through balls /900.00%
Threat added by passing /900.94xT86%
Box entries (pass) /903.4486%
Ball-Carrying40%vs 7 wingers
"Does he advance the ball himself when the pass isn't on?"
Progressive carries /904.5343%
Carry distance /90118.01m57%
Successful take-ons /901.7529%
Take-on success39.19%29%
Box Threat76%vs 7 wingers
"Is he a genuine goal threat by shot volume and quality?"
xG /900.32xG86%
Shots /902.6657%
xGOT /900.33xGOT86%
Goals vs xG (in line with xG): 3 goals from 3.5 xG (-0.5)
right winger1v1 carriercuts insidehalf-space creator
621
minutes
7 apps
3
goals
3.50 xG
22
dribbles
36% won
10
key passes
1.45/90
1
box entries
0.14/90
5
progressive passes
0.7/90
5
final-3rd entries
0.7/90
76%
pass completion
256 passes
Overview

The player

Who he is and how he compares with his peers.

01

What Patterns Define Him?

His repeatable signature. A step only appears if its reliability score (sample size × match coverage) reaches at least Medium confidence — pattern mining, not anecdotes.

RECEIVE
Right Wing, Attacking third — mostly in the attacking third (68% of his 256 passes)
82% of touches wide right · 256× in 7/7 matches
↓
CARRY / BEAT MAN
dribble past the full-back, cut inside
36% won · 22× in 6/7 matches
↓
PROGRESS
drive the ball into the final third
0.7 progressive · 0.7 f3/90 · 5× in 4/7 matches
↓
CREATE / FINISH
cut-back or shot from inside
1.45 key passes /90 · 3 goals · 27× in 6/7 matches
Signature: receive wide right → beat the full-back → carry into the left-foot channel → deliver or shoot. Stop the 1v1 on the right and you starve the chain.
19

Where is he influential — vs where is he merely present?

Red fill = raw touch territory. Gold rings = zones where his influence (xT added, progression, line-breaks, key passes) outweighs how often he's actually there — one combined map instead of two separate maps to compare by eye. Red with no ring: present but not dangerous. A ring on faint red: rare touches, outsized impact.

own goal left, attacking →
37
passes / match
3.7
dribbles / match
26–51
pass range (matches)
2–6
dribble range (matches)
Pass range = his fewest and most passes in any single match this season (26 at the low end, 51 at the high) — a measure of match-to-match involvement, not pass distance. Dribble range works the same way, for dribbles/carries per match.
In possession

In possession

What he does with the ball: build-up, progression, creation, carrying and finishing.

04

How dangerous are his carries?

Real ball-carries

82 tracked carries (11.9/90, 21 progressive, 743m total) — the ball moving with his touches, a different signal from dribbles below (beating an opponent 1v1). this counts every touch-carry, not just his dribble attempts below — a fuller picture of how much of his ball-carrying is control-and-move rather than beating a man.

1%1%10%20%49%17%1%1%
progressivelateral/short% of his 82 carries originating in each zone · own goal left, attacking →
Every carry, exact path — median 7m, longest 34m
By zone — where the carry started → where it ended
12Outside → Inside
12Inside → Inside
56Outside → Outside
2Inside → Outside
First (54)Second (13)Third (8)Fourth (7)grouped by carry pattern (start + end position), largest group first
startendown goal left, attacking →

Dribbles (1v1s)

Bukayo Saka's signature is the dribble. Does he carry outside (down the right wing) or inside (into the half-space / centre)? Every dribble classified by channel. Season rate: 3.19 dribbles attempted /90.

brighter band = more dribbles · own goal left, attacking →
INSIDE 18%
OUTSIDE 82%
Dribble location — 4 inside · 18 outside
Right Wing
17 · 77%
Right Half-Space
4 · 18%
Central
0 · 0%
Left Half-Space
0 · 0%
Left Wing
1 · 5%
Vision AI 82% of his dribbles are in the wide right lane — he attacks the full-back on the outside, then threatens to cut inside onto his left foot.
14

How does he build & move the ball?

How he moves the ball — his 4 busiest progression routes, not where every pass starts and ends separately. Arrow width = how often, colour = xT gained, dashed = switch of play. The full breakdown is in the lane matrix below.

own goal left, attacking →
Lane transition matrix — when he receives in a lane, where does it go?
TO →RWRHSCLHSLWRW14651%7542%615%81%11%1RHS3421%744%1526%96%23%1C1242%550%68%1LHS2100%2LW0FROM
Rows normalised: each row sums to 100% of that lane's completed passes. Grey number = passes from that lane.

Primary route: the right wing in the final third → the right half-space in the final third — 13 progressive passes (46% of his progression) at 0.059 xT each. He moves it inside.

His progression is inward: 82% of progressive passes move the ball toward the middle versus 4% going wider — he cuts in rather than holding width.

Only 7% of his passes switch play, so his threat is same-side — contain the flank he occupies and the route closes.

Quality behind the volume: 15 line-breaking passes and 5 final-third entries, 2.7 total xT added.

Origin and destination are measured on the same event row — no receiver inference. Receiver identity is not recoverable from this data source.
All passes — origin zone share
Filter: from to
1%6%8%12%34%30%1%3%2%2%1%0%
completedincomplete256 passes · any zone → any zone · own goal left, attacking →
256
passes
76%
completed
62
lost
Vision AIIn line with his 76% season completion rate.
06

How does he create chances?

10 key passes (1.45/90), 0 of them assists — where his chance creation specifically comes from, 18 zones (6×3), showing his share of key passes originating there.

Chance creation — key pass origin zone share
Filter:
86%14%
chance creation (7)assist (0)% of the selected group's key passes originating in each zone
Box deliveries — key passes reaching the final third, by flank
from the left (0)from the right (7)of 7 key passes landing in the final thirdattacking ↑ toward goal
10

Can he finish?

17 shots · 3.50 xG · 3 goals (-0.50 vs xG). Mostly left-footed. Circle size = xG.

shots  17
on target  15
goals  3
xG  3.50
xG on target  3.78
xG / shot  0.206
Where he shoots from — click an area of the box
11

Where does he become vulnerable?

76 possessions lost. Directness has a cost — the question is where. Attacking-third losses are cheap; deep ones are dangerous.

54
attacking third (cheap)
16
middle third
6
own third (dangerous)
Vision AI 71% of losses are in the attacking third — he gambles where a turnover costs little.
Mistake danger (proxy): 1.92 danger-index/90 · 0.174 avg/turnover. Weights each loss by threat conceded at that location. True xT-conceded needs the opponent possession model; positional proxy.
12

What is his passing profile?

256
passes attempted
44%
mostly sideways
71%
mostly short
Direction
Forward
45 · 18%
Sideways
112 · 44%
Backward
99 · 39%
Length (completed)
Short (<15m)
138 · 71%
Medium
48 · 25%
Long (>30m)
8 · 4%
02

Where Does He Receive?

The zones where Bukayo Saka gets on the ball — his top three ball-collection areas highlighted (gold = primary). Reception is proxied by where his on-ball actions begin (no explicit receiver is recorded).

123
1 = primary, 2 = secondary, 3 = third · own goal left, attacking →
His collection zones
51%
Primary
Right Wing, Attacking third
14%
Secondary
Right Half-Space, Attacking third
14%
Third
Right Wing, Middle third
These are the zones where he collected the ball most.
03

Where Does He Operate? — Every Zone

Every on-ball touch (pass, dribble, shot) binned into a 6×3 grid — raw counts of where Bukayo Saka actually gets on the ball. Hover any zone for its breakdown by action type, its share of all touches, and the exact coordinate range it covers.

Filter:
11128591131622339291
own goal left, attacking → · brighter + higher number = more touches

Passes only — completed vs incomplete, by zone

Same zone grid, restricted to passes so completed/incomplete and match filters actually mean something — a shot or a dribble has no "completed" in the pass sense.

1%6%8%12%34%30%1%3%2%2%1%0%
own goal left, attacking →
13

Every Pass This Season — completed vs incomplete

Every pass this season, plotted individually — green = completed, grey (dashed) = incomplete, gold = key pass. Filter by outcome or isolate one match below.

10Key pass
1Cross
7Cutback
5Progressive
16Long ball
7Switch
By zone — where the pass started → where it landed
70Outside → Inside
39Inside → Inside
76Outside → Outside
9Inside → Outside
By direction
45Forward
99Backward
112Sideways
own goal left, attacking →
08

Tactical patterns — how his football actually looks

Three clustered sequence diagrams from his own event data — his three busiest routes: the way he progresses, the pattern behind his chances, and where a turnover turns dangerous.

own goal left, attacking →
Where do his chances come from?
Of 10 key passes, his busiest route is a delivery where he plays inside from the right wing toward the central in the final third — 5 times. The receiver isn't identifiable in this data, only where the pass started and ended.
Where does he lose the ball most?
This is a RATE, not a raw count — the share of his touches in each zone that end in a turnover, so a zone he simply plays in more often doesn't automatically look riskier. His weakest zone is the right half-space in the final third: 58% of his 36 touches there are lost (21 times).
27%4/15 lost—4 touches · too few—1 touch · too few—0 touches · too few—0 touches · too few21%7/33 lost20%4/20 lost12%1/8 lost—2 touches · too few—0 touches · too few16%21/130 lost58%21/36 lost—5 touches · too few—2 touches · too few—0 touches · too fewRWRHSCLHSLWDEFMIDATT
05

Does he carry inside or outside — his ball-carries across the pitch

Four arrows, one per movement class of his ball-carries: outside→inside (cutting in with the ball), inside→outside (carrying wide), outside→outside (down the touchline) and inside→inside (through the middle). Each count is measured from the carry's real start and end coordinates.

own goal left, attacking →
Across 82 ball-carries, his dominant tendency is that he drives along the touchline (68%). He carries from outside into the middle 12 times and out toward the touchline 2 — a genuine inside forward who cuts in with the ball.
07

What happens right after he carries the ball

Every carry's end point matched against his own very next pass or shot in the same match, when one starts almost exactly there — the direct continuation of that touch, not a separate stat. “No clean link” means no pass or shot of his own started close enough to count (often the carry ended in a tackle or a loss); it isn't a claim about exactly what happened, only that nothing traceable followed.

Shot
1 · 1%
Progressive / key pass
9 · 11%
Simple pass
59 · 72%
No clean link
13 · 16%
Of 82 carries, 1% flow straight into a shot of his own, 11% into a key or progressive pass — a genuine end product to the carry, not just ball retention. 16% have no clean link to a next touch of his own close to where the carry ended.
09

Crosses & Cutbacks

1 crosses (0.14/90, 0 completed) and 7 cutbacks (1.01/90, 4 completed) — two separate wide-delivery patterns into the box, each its own map with a completed/failed filter. Neither is a tagged event, so both are inferred from pass geometry — the intended end point of a failed attempt is still real data (an interception doesn’t erase where the ball was aimed): a cross is a pass aimed into the box starting from a wide channel; a cutback starts almost on the byline but is squared back rather than driven forward, aimed centrally around the box. The completed-cross count was checked against this platform’s own real match-level cross totals and lands within about 1 cross of the true count.

Crosses — close-up on the final third
Cutbacks — close-up on the final third
completedfailed (dashed)close-up on the box — attacking ↑ toward goal
Out of possession

Out of possession

Where and how he defends and presses.

16

How & where does he defend?

92 defensive actions across the season (13.3/90). Where he wins the ball, and how — the core question for a defender. Aerial duels are not recorded for this competition, so aerial dominance is not measured here.

click a card to isolate that action type · own goal left, attacking →
11
tackles · 73% won
4
interceptions · 0.6/90
23
recoveries · 3.3/90
7
clearances · 1.0/90
4
blocks
49
avg action height
24
won high (att 3rd)
41
middle third
27
own third
Vision AI A front-foot / high defender. He wins the ball mainly by stepping in — tackles, interceptions & recoveries outweigh clearances. 38 proactive ball-wins (5.5/90), tackle success 73%. He defends high, stepping out to intercept — suits a high line.

Defensive work in the attacking half

Ball-wins in the attacking half only (own half vs. attacking half, a simple 2-way split, not the usual thirds) — the clearest single signal of how much he presses and recovers the ball high up the pitch.

46
attacking-half actions · 6.67/90
15

Against Different Pressing Intensities

Split by how hard the opponent pressed (opponent PPDA — lower = more intense press). Does Bukayo Saka keep producing when the game is tight and the press is high? Tiers of ~2-3 matches — directional evidence, not proof.

press tier
xT /90
prog /90
key P /90
dribble%
High press (PPDA 3.6, 2m)
0.94
1.1
2.13
50%
Mid press (PPDA 4.3, 2m)
0.77
0.5
1.40
0%
Low press (PPDA 7.8, 3m)
0.99
0.7
1.04
33%
Team

Team context

How much of the team runs through him, and what changes without him.

17

Impact on the Team

Arsenal's output per match with Bukayo Saka (7 matches) versus without him (1 matches). Insufficient evidence — the without-sample is only 1 matches; treat every Δ below as noise until more games exist. A proper on-off model needs many more minutes.

WITH (7)
WITHOUT (1)
Δ
goals for /match
1.57
2.00
-0.43
xG for /match
1.50
0.00
+1.50
goals against /match
0.71
0.00
+0.71
points /match
2.57
3.00
-0.43
18

His Share of the Team

Of everything Arsenal produced this season, the categories where the biggest share ran through Bukayo Saka specifically — his share of the team total, not a per-90 rate.

category
share
him / team
goals
27%
3 / 11
successful take-ons
20%
58 / 293
box entries
15%
114 / 783
Recruitment

Style and verdict

Style profile, closest comparables, and the summary.

20

Playing-Style Profile

Not raw event counts — football style scores: weighted models scored 0–100 against the 180 wingers in the pool (min 450 min). This is what separates players who post similar numbers but play differently. Proxy dimensions are inferred from on-ball data; true off-ball running / under-pressure context is not measured.

Pressing forward83%Transition runner80%Wide dribbler / isolator75%Inside forward73%
Why Pressing forward 83%: a weighted blend of defensive aggression 81 (weight 45%) + ball-winning 83 (weight 30%) + transition 56 (weight 25%). The score reflects how distinctively his profile SHAPE matches this archetype vs his peers.
Elite
box threat, line-breaking
Strong
ball-winning, through-balls, defensive aggression, crossing, receiving zones, progression
Average
dribbling, final-third threat, carrying, transition, press resistance, creativity, retention, territory (wide vs central), build-up
Weak
passing directness
Unknown
aerial ability, marking, off-ball running — not in event data
Box threat
92
Line-breaking
86
Ball-winning
83
Through-balls ~proxy
81
Defensive aggression
81
Crossing
79
Receiving zones
78
Progression
77
Dribbling
63
Final-third threat
62
Carrying
59
Transition ~proxy
56
Press resistance ~proxy
56
Creativity
51
Retention
47
Territory (wide vs central)
46
Build-up
45
Passing directness
30
21

Similar Players — in style space

Closest comparables measured on the style scores above, within the same position family — so it separates how players are alike, not just how much they touch the ball. Each line explains the shared strength and the divergent mechanism. A light physical-profile term (height / weight; this player: 178 cm / 65 kg) is included at a quarter of one style axis's weight — enough to break ties between stylistic twins, not to override style. Scope: pooled across the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A, percentiled within each player's own league before comparing — a match from another league is marked with its league name.

Style, not quality: a high match here means two players tend to produce the ball in similar ways — it is not a ranking, a scouting recommendation, or a claim that they are equally good.

Lennart Karl Bayern · Bundesliga · 168 cm / 67 kg
80%
Driven by: defensive aggression (19%), box threat (17%), receiving zones (11%). Different mechanism — Saka more via territory (wide vs central); Karl more via retention, build-up.
Bradley Barcola Liverpool · 182 cm / 73 kg
77%
Driven by: box threat (22%), defensive aggression (21%), receiving zones (11%). Different mechanism — Saka more via transition; Barcola more via creativity, retention.
Nico Williams Athletic Club · La Liga · 181 cm / 67 kg
73%
Driven by: defensive aggression (23%), box threat (20%), line-breaking (11%). Different mechanism — Saka more via through-balls, ball-winning; Williams more via carrying, creativity.
Francisco Conceição Juventus · Serie A · 166 cm / 67 kg
68%
Driven by: box threat (23%), defensive aggression (13%), crossing (12%). Different mechanism — Saka more via ball-winning, passing directness; Conceição more via carrying, retention.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia PSG · Ligue 1 · 183 cm / 76 kg
67%
Driven by: box threat (20%), crossing (13%), receiving zones (11%). Different mechanism — Saka more via ball-winning, passing directness; Kvaratskhelia more via retention, press resistance.
Antony Real Betis · La Liga · 174 cm / 63 kg
67%
Driven by: box threat (18%), crossing (13%), line-breaking (13%). Different mechanism — Saka more via defensive aggression, dribbling; Antony more via passing directness, retention.
22

Summary

Bukayo Saka is a wide, outside-first right carrier: 82% of dribbles in the wing lane, 70% of passes from wide — but 56% land inside. 0.7 progressive passes and 1.45 key passes /90 plus 3 goals from 3.50 xG. A carry-and-deliver threat.

Based on 7 matches (621 minutes) — an early read, treat with caution until more minutes are logged. He profiles as a pressing forward / transition runner — best used in a system built around that identity. His biggest room for growth is transition — even a modest improvement there would meaningfully lift his overall pressing forward profile.
✨ This report is interactive

Click any stat card to filter its map, hover a dot for the exact match, and use the dropdowns to slice passes zone-to-zone. Nothing here is static.

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