Mikel Arteta admits that struggling star is ‘trying hard’ | OneFootball

Manager Mikel Arteta has admitted that Bukayo Saka is struggling currently, but insists that he is ‘trying hard’ for Arsenal.

The Gunners scraped another win yesterday to bring us away from the relegation zone, but the performance was far from exceptional, although our opposition certainly were not making things easy for us either.

Burnley were at their physical best and hard at work at stopping us from playing football, playing a number of professional fans in order to stop us in our tracks, making the victory that much sweeter.

The physicality of the matchup did take it’s toll on our players however, with both Thomas Partey and Kieran Tierney having to be taken off with niggles, and the manager admitted that Bukayo Saka was also struggling during the match.

“I think there are still things to improve there, but he is trying hard. He is another one who struggled in the final minutes,” Arteta is quoted by Football.London as saying after the 90 minutes at Turf Moor.

“But it’s great that he’s able to suffer and somehow come through that and manage these difficulties and adversities during games where it is not really going for him.

“That is part of football. He had parts where he was brilliant and then he struggled and then he was brilliant again.

“That is better than being brilliant and then to struggle, struggle and struggle. So it’s part of his development and I’m really happy with him.”

We should count ourselves a little lucky to have lower league opposition in Wimbledon coming up in midweek, otherwise we could well have been forced to play a number of first-team players in order to reach the next round of the EFL Cup, but we should be able to rest those who need it.

Patrick