Chelsea star was told to play like Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka to get even better, it’s actually working

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Arsenal will grin amid learning that their London rivals, Chelsea, are benefitting from a player largely shaped by Bukayo Saka.

Arsenal haven’t looked back since Unai Emery plucked Saka from the comfort of Hale End to become a first-teamer.

The Spaniard handed the winger his Arsenal debut, and Mikel Arteta kept the torch lit, with the 23-year-old now one of the world’s best.

Saka has been told he could be a future Ballon d’Or winner, which only emphasises his growth over the years at his boyhood club, which has prompted outsiders to learn from the Arsenal star.

• READ MORE: Arsenal’s shocking starting XI from Bukayo Saka debut after 200th appearance

Pedro Neto was urged to take inspiration from Bukayo Saka

Saka is inspiring the next generation at Arsenal, being a superb role model to newly promoted graduates Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri.

Being the player that he is, and the person that he is, it’s unsurprising to see the Hale End product shining as a source of inspiration, not only to those at the Emirates.

Saka came into conversation when former Wolves manager Gary O’Neil caught up with The Guardian following his dismissal at Molineux in December 2024. 

During the interview, the English coach touched upon how he got the best out of Pedro Neto, now of Chelsea, to which he revealed Saka was used as a ‘reference point’.

O’Neil explained how he wanted the Portugal international to ‘become more unpredictable’, using Saka as inspiration to get the 25-year-old ticking when it came to his final ball.

The former Wolves boss warned Neto that he had to ‘be better’ in the final moments of a move if he wanted to earn a move to a ‘top’ club, which he did, signing for Chelsea in the summer of 2024.

After ‘endless drills on cutbacks’ and also ‘inswinging crosses’, O’Neil shaped Neto into a more decisive player in the final third, proving that using Saka as a reference worked for the winger. 

Saka reference clearly shaped Neto

Chelsea scooped up Neto and benefited from O’Neil’s work with the player, who, before being shaped by the Englishman, was not known for his output in the slightest. 

Ironically, Arsenal were linked to Neto before he signed for the Blues, and now, the forward is starting to show his quality at Stamford Bridge, with a lot of his development down to Saka. 

As seen above, before O’Neil arrived at Wolves and made his demands to the player clear, Neto’s output in the Premier League was incredibly poor.

Despite only scoring two goals in his final season at Molineux, he did record nine assists, making the most of O’Neil’s advice by acting on the encouraging positions he got himself into. 

Now at the Club World Cup with Chelsea, with three goals to his name in three games, Enzo Maresca might just be thanking O’Neil for raising the bar for his player using Saka.