Comparing Bukayo Saka’s Premier League stats to Rooney, Ronaldo, Owen & Fabregas at the age of 23

Ben Stewart • 06 Sep 2024

Bukayo Saka recently celebrated his 23rd birthday. We’ve compared his record at this stage of his career with Premier League icons Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Cesc Fabregas and Michael Owen, all of whom similarly burst onto the scene as prodigiously talented youngsters.

Since making his Arsenal debut in 2018, Saka has continually improved and is now regarded as one of the best wingers in Europe.

Having originally emerged into the first-team as a versatile left-back, it wasn’t long before he nailed down a starting spot on the right-hand side under Mikel Arteta.

The 2023–24 campaign was the most prolific season of his career to date as he managed to score 20 goals across all competitions, while also providing an impressive 14 assists.

Like Saka, Arsenal themselves have been improving season upon season and they are now in a strong position to compete for the biggest trophies available.

The 23-year-old started the 2024-25 campaign with a bang as he produced a goal and assist in Arsenal’s season opener against Wolves.

After the game, Arteta even compared Saka to Lionel Messi: “With good players, it’s like that, with Messi I know he’s going to come here and put the ball there, but he does it all the time. You can’t stop him.

“That’s the quality of the player. You have to really understand where they are, what they need, to give them some space and let them breathe.”

While Saka is by no means on the same level as Messi, the Arsenal star is undoubtedly one of the best players in Europe right now.

Since the 2019–20 season, Saka’s goal output as improved year upon year and the 23-year-old isn’t showing any signs of slowing down soon.

Impressively, Saka has more Premier League goal contributions at the age of 23 than Ronaldo had. In 173 games, Saka has 86 goal contributions, whereas Ronaldo had 77 goal contributions in 150 matches.

TRY A QUIZ: Can you name the top 40 non-UK goalscorers in Premier League history?

To illustrate just how good Saka currently is, we’ve taken a closer look at his Premier League record up until this point and have compared it with Rooney, Ronaldo, Michael Owen and Cesc Fabregas at the same stage of their career.