Bukayo Saka's Struggles Raise Concerns for England
Bukayo Saka looks broken. Not technically, not officially, but in the way that makes seasoned ex‑pros wince.
Gary Neville has watched him closely across England’s group-stage slog in North America and doesn’t like what he sees. The Arsenal winger, usually all light feet and easy smiles, is carrying a persistent Achilles problem that the FA’s medical team have been tracking all tournament. The numbers say he has played in all three group games. The eyes say something else.
His minutes have been clipped and carefully managed by Thomas Tuchel, almost entirely from the bench, as England have stumbled their way into the knockouts. Saka has been present, but rarely himself.
“Bukayo Saka doesn’t look right at all,” Neville said on Stick to Football, brought to you by Sky Bet. “He’s usually the boy that’s bubbling and smiling, he’s got that competitive edge to him, but he’s not right and that’s a concern to us, I think.”
It’s not just a passing observation. It’s a warning.
A gamble catching up with Saka
The backdrop is brutal. Saka has come off another heavy domestic season with Arsenal, his workload a constant talking point as Mikel Arteta leaned on him week after week. By the end of the Premier League run‑in, his game-time was already being rationed. Ninety minutes became a rarity months ago.
He knew the risk. Saka has already admitted he was “happy to gamble” with his fitness to make this World Cup. That gamble is now playing out in real time.
Ian Wright, who has defended Saka as fiercely as anyone in recent years, now sounds more worried than protective. He is not convinced the player should even be here.
“We're going into a World Cup, and still not starting the first few games, only starting when we're three games in, and still isn't looking like the Saka that we know – this guy needs a break,” Wright said.
That is not a throwaway line. “This guy needs a break” from a man who knows what it is to hit the wall physically after long, relentless seasons, cuts through the usual tournament chatter. England have pushed one of their most important players to the limit. The question is whether they have already gone past it.
Wide men wasting their moment
Saka’s condition would be less alarming if England’s alternatives were tearing games open. They aren’t.
Tuchel has turned to Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke to inject life into the flanks. The return has been modest. The spark that once defined England’s wide areas has fizzled, leaving the team leaning heavily on Jude Bellingham’s surges from midfield and Harry Kane’s moments of penalty-box clarity.
The pattern has become too familiar: England probe, recycle, hesitate out wide, and then wait for Bellingham to conjure something or for Kane to find half a yard. That’s not a sustainable plan deep into a World Cup.
Roy Keane, rarely one to sugarcoat a problem, sees a glaring issue that could decide England’s fate in the knockout rounds.
“The wingers need to grab their opportunity. These players haven't quite grabbed their opportunity yet,” he said. “In the group games, you can maybe slip up in one of them, but now at least one of them has to start turning up.”
There’s no ambiguity there. Group-stage anonymity can be explained away. From the last‑32 onwards, it becomes a liability.
A brutal path and a brutal verdict
England now head to Atlanta to face DR Congo in the last‑32, a tie they are expected to navigate, even in their current, uneven state. But the bracket beyond that is already being mapped out and dissected.
Win, and the route hardens quickly: Mexico or Ecuador in the last‑16, Brazil looming as a likely quarter-final opponent, and then, if they somehow survive that gauntlet, a semi-final against Lionel Messi’s Argentina.
The split in pundit opinion is not about the scale of the challenge. It’s about where the journey ends.
Wright can see a version of events where England edge past Brazil.
“I think if we can get to Brazil we could probably beat Brazil,” he said. “But then I think we’d have problems after that. I said England would reach the semi-final from the start.”
Keane doesn’t even entertain the romantic scenario. For him, Argentina represent a hard stop.
“England would have absolutely no chance of beating Argentina in the semi’s, I just can’t see it,” he stated.
That is the level of scepticism surrounding this England side: doubts about their fitness, doubts about their wingers, and deep doubts about their ability to live with the very best when the stakes rise and the margins shrink.
All of it circles back to the same image: Bukayo Saka, one of the symbols of this generation, looking like a shadow of himself on the biggest stage. If England are already asking too much of him now, what happens when Brazil – or Messi’s Argentina – demand even more?
