Freddie Ljungberg On Why Bukayo Saka Was Unhappy With Him

Freddie Ljungberg revealed Bukayo Saka might have been angry at his decision to be played at fullback against Standard Liege.

The youngster turned out to be the standout player for Arsenal, laying off Alexandre Lacazette for the first goal and then scoring the equalizer himself.

“(Saka) was amazing,” Ljungberg said after the game. “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.

“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).”

Saka admitted he was happy with his performance as he said, “It was beautiful for me because that is what I am judged on, scoring and assisting, so to score and to make one is a good night.

“We feel we are taking a lot of confidence. In our last game in the Premier League (against West Ham) we won, and while we didn’t win here we came back. We always keep our heads and try to get a result because we knew what the stakes were and that if we lost we could possibly be out.

“It’s a good feeling because on the pitch we didn’t know (the result in the Frankfurt game) and were pushing for the third goal to try to win the game but Freddie was trying to tell us that Frankfurt were down. Everyone came into the changing room after and found out we were top of the group.”