Bukayo Saka is tied for the most goals scored at Arsenal with 3 to start the season, yet his finishing seems to be one of the biggest early season worries among the fans.
The concern is picking up on something real, he has been profligate in front of goal so far this season. In the Premier League and Champions League, he has taken 18 non-penalty shots, worth 3.08 expected goals and has turned that into just two goals scored.
He also has a penalty that he did convert (the keeper did get his hands on it but couldn’t keep it out) but that is a generally different than shots from regular play so I will be excluding it.
Like the graphic points out, we are firmly in the small sample size range and that is especially the case when it comes to analyzing finishing. Goal finishing compared to expected goals is a notoriously noisy and variable measure and fewer than 20 shots is way too little to draw massive conclusions about.
Let’s go through some of the more frustrating misses so far this season.
Against Coventry and Aston Villa he scored both of his presentable chances and none of the other shots that weren’t converted were particularly bad or frustrating. I am going to focus here on the bigger chances and the ones where he was put into good shooting locations.
Chelsea (H)
The first one that we are looking at comes early in the match against Chelsea as Arsenal are looking to equalize.
This was called a “big chance” by Opta but I think that is an overrating of how often this situation is actually turned into a goal. He was nicely put through here and has a clear window on the goal but he ended up quite deep making this a very tough angle to convert from. My model rated this a tough shot giving it only a 6% chance for an average player to convert into a goal.
Saka has shown the ability to convert these tough angle shots well but this is still a shot on his weaker right foot with few openings at goal to aim at. He hits it with power but it is basically right at the keeper and saved.
This next one comes in the second half and it is probably less frustrating and just more of a reflection that shooting is tough. Arsenal are transitioning against Chelsea and Saka is able to get in behind and has a clear low pressure look at goal.
He takes it first time as it rolls past him but can’t quite generate much power on it, with it rolling directly at the keeper. We have seen Saka do better on chances like this and he would probably expect more as well but it was a tough shot, rating out at just a 5% chance.
The last one for the Chelsea match was another opportunity to make the single goal lead more comfortable. This was a fantastic bit of play, Ødegaard finds Havertz between the lines, he plays a flicked nutmeg into Saka who hit it sweetly. All that was missing was the back of the net rippling.
It was a good chance, but not a bad miss by the numbers, rating out at 10%. He hit this one well with his left foot and forced a good (but probably expected) save from Emi Martinez.
Napoli (A)
The first chance against Napoli comes late in the second half. Here Saka has a bit of good fortune driving in field and he ends up in the middle of the box with a pretty clear shooting window at the goal.
I think that overall this one is tougher than the 19% rating that my model gave it. The ball has bounced up awkwardly and there isn’t really time for him to bring it down. He ends up not making clean contact with the shot weakly rolling wide of the post.
The next chance is probably the worst miss of the bunch. This one comes just before halftime and it is after Saka has been played clean through on goal after a through ball.
This one got a 60% rating on my model and I agree that this one is the type that you’d expect to find the back of the net more often than not. He ends up putting this one just over the bar aiming for the top far corner.
Sunderland (A)
The biggest chance that he had in this match came in the 13th minute following a real nice Declan Rice chipped through ball. My model rates it as a good chance but one that is still missed or saved more often than not at 38%.
Given that he's jumping and taking it on the volley, I think the model may still be overrating it. It is still a chance that you’d love to see turned into a goal. It almost seems like he was caught between taking the shot himself and trying to lay it off to Kai Havertz.
The second chance in this match that left me hoping that he could do better came in the 74th minute. Arsenal created a good transition attack and Saka had a good shooting opportunity from the right side of the box.
There isn’t a lot of pressure on the shot but there is still a second defender making the open target at the goal smaller. He does well to take this first time, but he does decide to take this on his weaker right foot. This one got a 14% rating here and was put on target forcing a save.
Overall, I don’t think that there are too many “bad” misses here but there are certainly shots that when they fall to a player of Saka’s quality you wouldn’t have been surprised to see at least one more goal scored from these chances. This is also exactly what you get when you take the expected goals values of his shots this season and simulate the potential goals scoring outcomes.
This is somewhat comforting and shows that while you would like to see more goals here, it is probably just a bit of the random chance more than anything else.
What about the decision making? Is he getting too selfish?
I can be critical of players when they take shots in situations where a pass could have set someone else up better but I am not overly worried about that from the shots that he took here.
Looking at his shots this season, there are a couple that if I squint I can say yeah maybe but they certainly don’t get me too upset about them.
Both of the situations came against Sunderland, with the first coming in the 72nd minute. Here Tzolis is open on the left in a ton of space and there is a potential window to squeeze a pass through.
It isn't an easy pass, and with that much traffic it wouldn't have been easy to pick him out either. If he had done it, it would have been a spectacular pass.
The second one is similar, Saka decides to shoot rather than trying to pick out Tzolis and comes just a few minutes later.
This one for me is even tougher to try to squeeze a pass through, the defenders are in a good position to where they will likely be able to cut it out. Like the one that preceded it, if he completes the pass it creates a huge scoring opportunity (this one even more so) but it would require a spectacular pass.
Overall here, the shot selection doesn’t look overly selfish to me or that I am questioning his decision making.
Here are all of his shots so far this season, so you can look through them yourself and judge.
