Bukayo Saka's Arsenal Anniversary Shows Just How Far the Club Has Come

Sports fans can sometimes have a skewed sense of time. Players, after all, get "old" when they're in their 30s. A losing streak can feel as if it's lasting an eternity, and time never ticks by more quickly than when you're staring down the barrel of a painful loss.

But sometimes there's a moment that brings everything into perspective. And for Arsenal fans, one of those arrived on Wednesday.

In 2023, the Gunners are sitting atop the Premier League table and getting ready for a Champions League match. In 2018, though, things were much different. At the tail end of a Europa League match against Ukraine's Vorskla Poltava, Bukayo Saka made his senior debut.

That reality underscores just how far he, and his English club, has come.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane.

Saka Made His Debut on This Day in 2018

Under Arsène Wenger, Arsenal seemed to hold a guaranteed ticket into the Champions League. Toward the end of his time in London, though, standards slipped, and the Gunners fell into the Europa League, the UEFA's second-tier competition.

And that's where the club found itself during the 2018-19 season, with Unai Emery at the helm. Drawn into a group consisting of Sporting (Portugal), Qarabag (Azerbaijan) and Vorskla Poltava (Ukraine), the English club strolled through the opening six matches without much issue.

One silver lining to the Europa League, however, was the opportunity to give young players a chance to experience European football. And in the 69th minute of Arsenal's 3-0 win in Ukraine, Saka got a chance to step onto the senior stage for the first time.

The teenager, who was 17 at the time, came onto the pitch wearing No. 87. He also replaced Aaron Ramsey, slotting into midfield, and saw out the game without any notable contributions.

In the scope of Arsenal's recent history, though, that cameo was rather significant.

While he didn't make much of an impact during the 2018-19 campaign, Saka assumed a larger and larger role within the senior squad. He slotted into the left-back position during the following season but didn't even feature during the Gunners' 2020 FA Cup win.

After that, though, the England international moved further up the pitch into his now-familiar forward role. And while the 2020-21 season didn't give Gunners fans much to cheer about, Saka assumed the iconic No. 7 shirt and was one of the few bright spots. He was named the club's player of the season and earned a place on the PFA Young Player of the Season shortlist.

During the 2021-22 campaign, Saka stood tall as Arsenal's leading scorer. And during the 2022-23 outing, the winger was a key part of the North London club's chase for the Premier League title. His presence on the right wing and ability to conjure a telling moment out of thin air is a key part of the current Arsenal. That status was further confirmed with the 2022-23 PFA Young Player of the Year crown.

While he started out as a promising prospect, the forward has grown beyond his "Starboy" moniker. He's a fixture for both Arsenal and the England national team, features prominently in virtually every promotion connected with the club and even earned a place among this year's Ballon d'Or finalists.

And while you can claim that official club media isn't the most unbiased source, Arsenal's website summed things up best with a feature titled "Bukayo Saka: From Student to Superstar."

A Great Deal Has Changed Since Saka's Debut

It goes without saying that Saka isn't the only one that's changed over the years. Arsenal as a club is in a much different place.

In terms of infrastructure, manager Emery has been replaced by former club captain Mikel Arteta. And while the early results weren't great—Arsenal suffered through a brutal run of form during the 2020-21 season, and he could have lost his job if empty stadiums didn't blunt public pressure—he has turned the club around.

Raul Sanllehi, the club's head of football, has also left London. Edu Gaspar, another former Arsenal player, largely fills his role as sporting director. Arteta, who is officially labeled as a manager rather than a coach, also plays more of a wide-ranging role than Emery did.

There's also been turnover on the pitch, with the (former) big names of Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Ozil gone. The Gunners' collective age profile has changed, with young talents like Saka, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba forming the core of the team.

And, at the risk of stating the obvious, the results have improved. During the season when Saka made his debut, Arsenal finished fifth in the Premier League. The club sagged down to eighth in the following two campaigns before climbing back to fifth in 2021-22. Last year's second-place finish may have felt disappointing, given the time spent in first place, but it was undeniably progress.

And, relevant to Wednesday's anniversary, that second-place finish put Arsenal into the Champions League, a step above the competition where Saka made his debut.

These days, the entire atmosphere around Arsenal is completely different. There are standards, but there's also a sense of hope and belief. Match days come with some pressure, but that's a reminder of how far things have come. No one, to be brutally honest, cared about the Europa League. When you're sitting in eighth place, a single win or loss doesn't really matter. Chasing the title and playing Champions League football, however, means that every result matters.

As the cliché says, no one person is bigger than an entire club. Saka's rise, however, is a pretty perfect parallel to Arsenal's recent improvement.