Arsenal already have their own Lamine Yamal as Mikel Arteta Champions League masterplan clear

Three years after his Arsenal first-team debut, aged 17, Bukayo Saka clocked 100 appearances for the club. By that time he was 20 and had already scored more than 15 senior goals. He was into his third full season as part of the squad having come through briefly under Unai Emery.

From there it has been almost all Mikel Arteta. Of Saka's 258 matches to date, 238 of those have been for Arteta.

In the Premier League, all but 10 of Saka's 191 appearances have been with Arteta as the manager. His output has continued to shoot up year-on-year (when fit) and he has 103 goal involvements - split as evenly as can be with 52 goals and 51 assists - in 181 games.

Last August he became the third youngest player in Premier League history to reach 100 wins. In November he cemented his place as the fourth youngest player to hit 100 goal contributions in the division as well.

Saka has been around for so long, first breaking through as a wing-back with an attacking spark in a turgid period for the club, then transitioning towards youthful quality alongside Emile Smith-Rowe, and now leading the new dawn of Arsenal himself, that it is hard to remember that he still qualifies for the young player of the season award. Whether or not 23-year-old's with so much experience should be able to or not is another matter entirely, that is down to the Premier League rules.

Later this year Saka will make an appearance in his eighth league season. Barring a tragedy it will almost certainly be the seventh straight one that he racks up more than 1,500 minutes. It is likely to be his sixth in a row with more than 2,000 minutes and at least 21 appearances.

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In the last three he has managed a minimum of 11 (and counting) assists with the last three full seasons bringing at least 11 goals - only injury has stopped him matching that this season. For someone of his age it should not be taken for granted because Saka remains the outlier.

He has 43 England caps including two European Championship finals and a World Cup quarter-final. He has scored an international hat-trick among his 12 goals so far. His only major trophy is still the FA Cup in 2020 which remains Arteta's sole piece of silverware but Arsenal are on the right trajectory to change that.

. That is a big challenge given they are 1-0 heading to the away match.

Should Arsenal reach the final in Munich then they will have to get past Barcelona or Inter, who played out a brilliant 3-3 first leg in Spain on Wednesday night.

Yamal is at the front of this. This week he reached 100 matches for his boyhood club. At 17.

He won't turn 18 until mid-July. At this stage in Saka's career he was still finding his feet in academy football and readying himself for the steady step-up. Yamal has not waited around.

His La Liga debut came in April 2023 as a 15-year-old. He started the next season, now 16, and only missed one of 38 league matches. He scored five and assisted seven.

This season he has continued that ascent to the very top of the world game, assisting 14 in La Liga as well as scoring six from 30 games. He is on his way to a possible treble and has started to tear the Champions League apart.

Yamal's numbers are sensational but his silky smooth ability is where it is at. He has found answers to questions not yet asked of him and has an extraordinary maturity around him despite the bleached blonde hair and braces. This is a kid who plays like one in the sense of freedom but has the output of a seasoned professional.

It is no surprise that Yamal leads the way in research conducted by CIES Football Observatory for the most matches in his age group. He had played 117 senior games for club and country (because he already has 19 caps and four goals for Spain having skipped the Under-21s, which he would still be eligible to play for in another four years) by April 14, 2025.

The next most is fellow La Masia graduate Pau Cubarsi with 93. Saka cannot match that at the same age but does rank extremely high for the 2001-born category. Only three players had more than his 302 appearances when the findings were published.

Rodrygo of Real Madrid is top of that list but benefits from the early introduction to professional football that many in South America are pushed into. Takefusa Kubo is second with Bristol City's Jason Knight a surprise third. Other than Knight, Saka made his debut after Rodrygo and Kubo as well.

Not that this is a competition, because the fear is always that players will burnout early and start to struggle physically when they reach their mid-to-late 20s due to the miles put into them at such a young age, but it is a reflection of just how ahead of his peers Saka is.

Yamal is incomparable on many levels