The Most Important Thing Arsenal Must Do This Summer Is Solve Bukayo Saka's Future

Bukayo Saka. The absolute jewel in the crown of this Arsenal team. Someone whose contract absolutely needs to be sewn up if the club is able to compete both on and off the pitch in the coming years.

For far too long Arsenal have tied themselves into financially awful deals to try and buy their way back into the Champions League and beyond. What started out to be a small sticky plaster to remedy a fairly healthy situation fast became a plaster far too small to cover the many, many cracks. It’s a big reason as to why Mikel Arteta has long begun cleaning house in this regard. He was burnt with short term deals to a degree if you think about the likes of Willian not quite working out.

Willian left Arsenal having won no titles at the club

Since then, there has been a culling of the guys taking up the largest wage packets across the squad and a pointed direction headed towards trusting in project youth.

Herein lies the contract situation of Saka. He is a huge reason that Arsenal even got close to securing Champions League football, so from a talent standpoint alone he must be tied down. Were it not for burn out, he could well have led Arsenal back amongst Europe’s elite.

Though outside of the success on the pitch it’s now imperative that Arsenal plan for their future. It’s vital that there is an “afterwards” strategy based on new signings, re-signings and loans alike. Liverpool for example were able to progress so heavily due to their outstanding ability to sell on both squad players and big hitters. The Philippe Coutinho money funded the incomings of both Alison Becker and Virgil Van Dijk. But beyond that they were able to sell youth products such as Rhian Brewster for £23.5m to Sheffield United.

Coutinho failed to live up to expectations at Barcelona

That is the way that you can ensure the future of the squad is looked after. This is an area in which Arsenal have been notoriously week over the last decade at least. The only real successful sales have occurred on three occasions. The sales of Alex Iwobi, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Joe Willock. There has been some large profits made there, however if you think about the losses on the likes of Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez, Danny Welbeck as well as the likely losses to come for the likes of Nicolas Pepe and Granit Xhaka, for whom there is no way Arsenal will get close to what they paid.

Here is where the club needs to make a properly objective self assessment. When the time is right, even if the club love the player, they need to be moved on. Hanging onto players for romanticism costs years in time lost to remain competitive. League title challenges have morphed into top four challenges. Top four challenges could well be in danger of being cast aside if the future of Arsenal’s most talented individuals isn’t looked after.

There could well be a time that Arsenal need to move the likes of Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe on for example, and as hard as that would be to accept for the fans and even some players it could be the injection of funds to push the team on in years to come.

It doesn’t feel as though Saka won’t sign a contract, however it’s vital that it is indeed secured early in the summer. Now in a world where player power is so prevalent (see the eye watering numbers for the Mbappe deal!), he may well have some pre-requisites to sign the deal. He might want assurances of transfer budget, playing time and other factors.

Kylian Mbappe is remaining at PSG with an eye watering contract

Big money doesn’t guarantee anything as we’ve seen before. Pepe was signed for huge sums and warms the bench. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was re-signed by Arteta himself and thereafter cast out. So whatever happens with the details, Saka will have to ensure he maintains his trajectory to stay in the reckoning for both Arsenal and England.

Everything is so finely balanced and yet could be knocked over so easily, especially when you consider his age. He is a young man who needs looking after in the right way, and yet will likely have a very large contract put in front of him. Everything about his demeanour suggests he will cope with it all just fine, but his world is about to change in a big way.

The youngest squad in the Premier League is likely to have some more experienced heads added to it and the pressure cooker environment is only going to get more intense. Saka aka “little chilli” can for sure handle the heat, but it’s the club who need to ensure they’re up for the challenge and remain cool throughout.

Topics: Kylian Mbappe, Bukayo Saka, Arsenal, Mikel Arteta

Mitesh Lakhani

Mitesh is an Arsenal writer and contributor to SPORTbible, focusing on thought pieces around the club and the general direction it is heading in.

@MiteshLakhani1