Bukayo Saka was phenomenal, gushes Freddie Ljungberg
Interim Arsenal manager Freddie Ljungberg praised Bukayo Sako as "amazing" and inspired Arsenal's fightback at Standard Liege but joked that the teenager was initially peeved by the position he was asked to play. The youngster scored one and assisted Alexandre Lacazette’s goal in a 2-2 draw.
Bukayo Saka inspired a late Gunners rally in their final Europa League group game, scoring and setting up Alexandre Lacazette in a 2-2 draw that proved to be enough to seal the top spot and place among the seeds in the last-32 draw on Monday. In the game, Interim Boss Ljungberg deployed a back three, pushing Saka into a rare left wing-back role, and Ljungberg remained delighted by his performance while he admitted that the youth at first seemed miffed.
“(Saka) was amazing. I think he was a bit upset with me before the game that he had to play wing-back and then full-back because he doesn't like it so much! But no, he's a tremendous talent and you could see it here again. His final ball and the last bit is always effective and there's always an end product to his work,” said Ljungberg to the Sky Sports.
The former Arsenal player, Ljungberg decided to give the youth prospects a chance in their final group game in the Europa League. Youngsters Reiss Nelson, Emil Smith Rowe, Joseph Willock, Bukayo Saka started the game. The North London club have not had smooth past few months with the Gunners struggling in the Premier League. The progression into the knockout stages of the Europa League will come as a sigh of relief for the supporters.
“I felt sorry sometimes for our young players because a lot of them have not been on loan. So they haven't got that exposure to play 90 minutes of men's football for a longer period of time. So I felt in this game that I wanted to get them on the pitch to get that experience, because I know how good they are but they just don't have experience and some of them, yes, they made some mistakes today. But I think from those mistakes they won't redo them and that's invaluable for them and we won the group. Bukayo did tremendous to go back to that (playing wing-back),” said Ljungberg.