What is a slump, anyway?
As an Arsenal supporter, that question has powered some big, deep conversations about the club’s best players over the past couple of seasons. And for a spreadsheet nerd like me who needs to watch the games instead of my rows and columns, the definition of “slump” or “off it” seems to come with a higher bar every season.
Was Ødegaard prime De Bruyne last season? No, of course not! But if you put him in a room with 99 randomly selected attacking midfielders, he likely had better numbers and output than 90 of them last season.
This season, the same is true of Bukayo Saka. More detail below, but Arsenal’s right-sided talisman has nine goal contributions in 22 PL 90s a season after getting 16 in three fewer 90s, and that’s spurred a lot of conversation whether he’s slumping, or maybe even whether he’s peaked.
He’s obviously not been perfect every week out this season, but as I sat down to start running these numbers, I didn’t feel a lot of nervousness about whether they’d back the idea that Saka has fallen off. Take a look below and you’ll get a strong sense of why.
As per usual, things to keep in mind as you read: This is based on stats, and stats aren’t always perfect. I have always encouraged watching the games for yourself rather than creating an entire opinion based off only the numbers.
The final rank is based on full two-season score, with guys in the top 25 fitting your standard profile for “transfer-friendly age,” which is usually slightly pre-prime.
So, just where is Saka among the best of the best? Scroll down!
