Saka’s former youth coach reveals the moment he knew Arsenal and England star was special | OneFootball

Bukayo Saka’s former youth coach Colin Nixon revealed the moment he realised the winger was a special talent.

Nixon coached Saka at his first club, Greenford Celtic, before the forward went onto Watford and then Arsenal where he won the Premier League title last season.

Saka’s quality is well known now, but back then the young star was without a club, and Nixon explained the interesting story of how he came to join his team.

“We were in the middle of the field and all of a sudden there was this young boy standing beside us with his mum and basically said to us, you know, can he join in?” he said.

“So I said, we weren’t looking for anyone, but because he’s here, he can join in and we’ll have a look. At the time we had a player who used to play at centre-back for us that we used to call the roundabout because no one could get round him. 

“And Saka just skipped past him and side-footed the ball into the bottom corner, which for someone that age was quite rare because normally they just thrash at it at that age.

“I looked at my number two, my number two looked at me. We both said we have to sign him. And yeah, we signed him and the rest is history, as they say.”

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Since then Saka has made it to the very top of the English game, and Nixon explained what he believes are the the key reasons behind his success.

“What I liked about him most was his attitude,” Nixon explained. “He wanted to learn. 

“You know, we’ve all seen good players that never made it. His attitude was just spot on. He comes from a good family, very grounded family, and he just wanted to learn. 

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“Every time you asked him to do something, he would go out onto that pitch and he would try to do it.

“What he’s doing now is just unbelievable and we’re so proud of him. His pace and power was just unbelievable for that age. You regularly saw him holding off two players, literally bigger boys on top of him, and he’s still going. His pace and power was very unique.”

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Credit: Chase football coaching programme