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Football London
Football London
Sport
Chris Wheatley

Arsenal's £100m star is now the Premier League's 'most promising' young player

It's been a whirlwhind couple of years for Bukayo Saka and the 19-year-old has shown no signs of slowing down.

The youngster recently celebrated making his 50th appearance for the Gunners and is currently the club's top assist maker.

Added to that, Saka has now provided eight assists in the Europa League since the start of last campaign - no other player has more in that period.

He signed a long-term contract with Arsenal last July until the summer of 2024, committing his future to the club and those supporters will be pleased to see the Hale End product being rewarded for his success on the pitch.

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The CIES Football Observatory has rated the most promising youngsters worldwide according to the amount of minutes they've played in their respective domestic league.

It also takes into account the level of the team they're playing for and it's no surprise to see Saka top the list for 2001-born players, ahead of Manchester United starlet Mason Greenwood.

Jadon Sancho, Alphonso Davies and Erling Haaland led the way for players born in 2000, whilst Barcelona’s Pedri Gonzalez ahead of St. Gallen’s Leonidas Stergiou are the top youngsters born in 2002.

"He's really humble, really respectful and at the same time has that character to demand the ball, to make decisions that are not very usual for his age," Arteta said of Saka in January.

"We need that leadership and he's gaining that with his attitude and his performances.

"He's all the time asking to train more to improve in areas that he can do better. That was certainly one, producing the final bit in the box to score or assist. He's doing that much more often.

"If he's able to do that with the intelligence that he has, with the work rate that he shows on the pitch and with the capacity that he has to understand the game in different positions, then he becomes a really different player."

In January Saka was valued at €116.2million (£105.11m) - more than Barcelona starlet Ansu Fati (€108.4m), Tottenham captain Harry Kane (€107m) and Bayern Munich forward Serge Gnabry (€103.3m).

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