Mikel Arteta is confident Bukayo Saka can handle the pressure of being a star for Arsenal and England - and he won’t get too big for his boots.
Saka is enjoying a brilliant season for club and country, helping Arsenal climb to the top of the Premier League and impressing for England at the World Cup.
The winger is only 21 and Arteta believes he can get even better as there are still areas to improve in his game.
All eyes are on Saka as the business end of the season begins this weekend, with Arsenal facing Leeds in the first of their final 10 games, but Arteta says he can handle the hype.
“He does it in a really natural way,” Arteta said. “And he also had moments when it was in the opposite way.
“He’s going to have to deal with that, with the expectations of the media, with attention on the pitch.
“When you want to fulfil a role like the one he has at the moment, you need to be capable of doing that. We have to help him. So don’t read too much, don’t listen too much, just focus on what you have to do every day.
“We don’t know if he is aware of that (all the attention). We don’t know how much he reads, how much we allow him to read and listen. And we always have a stick ready, don’t worry.
“He’s so humble, he’s very intelligent. He knows where this is coming from and he knows it’s like a cloud, here one moment and gone tomorrow.
“So keep moving in the right direction, make sure that the sun hits you in the right moment and have the right energy. Keep your eyes open and be alert, because this industry is very tough.”
Saka has been directly involved in 23 goals in his last 34 appearances for club and country, scoring one and assisting another as England beat Ukraine 2-0 on Sunday.
He is the first Arsenal player in double figures for both goals and assists in a Premier League campaign since Alexis Sánchez in 2016-17, and the only player to have done so in the competition this season.
But Arteta said: “He still has a lot of things to improve and a lot of things to maintain that he has been able to achieve for six or seven months in a competition.
“Before he wasn’t able to do that. So he needs to continue to maintain those things and elevate the level of other things that he can still do better.
“I’m a really young coach but I have talked to coaches who have been in sometimes different sports for 50 years and one day I asked them one question: ‘Have you ever coached a player that has fulfilled, in your opinion, his potential?’ And the answer from all five of them was no.
“And you’re talking there about Michael Jordan and people like that – they could still get better.
“So everyone can get better, an athlete can always improve, there are areas that can always be done better and for sure, if that’s the case, Bukayo can do a lot of things much better still.”
