Five seasons ago, Bukayo Saka clocked up 3,000 Premier League minutes for Arsenal. Morgan Rogers appeared in just 217 for Bournemouth, then of the Championship. The pair are the same school age. Yet, back then, one was a young man at the very top of the game, the other was a boy wondering where, and how, he would ever get a game.
In the same week that Rogers, a Manchester City junior, made his only league start during an unhappy loan season on the south coast - in a goalless draw at Peterborough - Saka was scoring in a 3-1 win in the North London derby. They were on very different flight paths.
Today, the ascent of Rogers compares with, dare we say it, the gradual descent of Saka. His supporters will contest that trajectory. They can point to his two goals for England in Croatia last month, his hat-trick in the 6-4 World Cup bronze-medal victory over France and, of course, his Premier League winner’s medal. Their argument has merit, as does any that defends a player of such talent.
Except, this is not about ability. It is about durability. It is about mileage and the fear that, at 25 years old, a near 400 career games are weighing heavy. Rogers, quite remarkably, has played 10,000 fewer Premier League minutes. He is, to borrow horse-racing parlance, unexposed and open to improvement.
Until three years ago, this was Saka. He started 87 consecutive Premier League games for Arsenal, a club record, and was getting better season on season - seven, 12, 15 and 20 were his goals tallies from 2021 to 2024. He was both the present and future of the England team.
And yet now, increasingly among those who obverse and are close to the England camp - including, you suspect, Thomas Tuchel - there is a feeling of Saka’s presumed starting jersey being under serious threat. In fact, you wonder if the threat has already passed. Does the position on the right of England’s forward line, with a view to Euro 2028, now belong to Rogers?
This, it should be said, is as much about the exceptional development of Rogers, who will again start on the right here in Spain on Sunday night. But there is another, more uncomfortable possibility, and that is of Saka’s very best days belonging to those North London derbies of yesterday, not tomorrow. He is currently injured with a thigh strain and faces several more weeks on the sidelines.
I was in the room with Tuchel at the World Cup pre-camp in Florida when he revealed, to some surprise, ’Bukayo is just not there yet. Some things are missing’. We had assumed Saka was fit after arranging private sessions in the wake of the Champions League final. The head coach, however, said it would be ‘very unlikely’ that Saka, nursing Achilles discomfort, would be able to start and finish all of England’s matches, and so it proved. He did not start and finish any before the France kick-about, a match that should have been played at Miami Beach, not Miami Stadium.
In the days prior to the semi-final against Argentina, Saka told Tuchel and medical staff he was ready to start. Tuchel went with Rogers on the right and Saka was an unused substitute. After his treble three days later, Saka spoke of his frustration with his playing time in North America.
Throughout the tournament, Tuchel rejected the idea of the Arsenal man being ‘the saviour’, as it was put to him by one colleague following the group-stage goalless draw with Ghana.
‘I’m not engaging in that,’ he told us. ‘It’s not like Bukayo comes back and everything is solved.’
And Tuchel was right. Saka did a lot of good - three assists in the tournament proper - but it felt like he was existing in moments, much like at Euro 2024. Gone was that whiplash speed taking him through defensive lines, the drag and dribble that defenders knew was coming but could do little about. Club-mate Noni Madueke had that explosion, just not Saka’s end product. Combine the two and we had a player. It was why, come the semis, Tuchel went with Rogers.
To revisit our Daily Mail Sport tournament ratings, in which Saka scored 6/10, we recorded: ‘Fitness issues should offer some context, but this was a version of Saka unrecognisable from the player we thought was up there with Kane and Bellingham when it came to being a game-changer. He did provide three assists, including a lovely cross for the opener in Mexico, but never appeared to fully trust his body. Has a bit to prove when back to full fitness.’
Will he ever, though, regain a consistent level of fitness, strength and sharpness that allows him to impact - again, consistently - like he once did? Just last week, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitted the club were struggling to identify the underlying reason for injuries which total double figures in three years.
‘We have openly discussed a lot of things with him to understand what could possibly have gone wrong,’ said Arteta. ‘But the reality probably is that unfortunately we don’t know.’
Saka, to return to horse racing, has the form in the book, but that is the concern. There is, perhaps, too much form at too young an age, especially when coupled with a game reliant on acceleration and intensity.
Rogers himself still has a lot to prove, not least because of his £117million transfer from Aston Villa to Chelsea in the summer. With that, though, he has grown. That much was evident by him taking centre stage against Croatia on Thursday night despite the presence of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. Previously, you suspected Rogers was waiting for the leading men to hand him his script.
His tendency to come infield will suit Tuchel, too. Kane the quarterback, as we saw at Wembley, leaves a space to populate and exploit. Rogers had more touches in the penalty area than any other player, including the one for his opening goal. And if Anthony Gordon, on the opposite flank, is the one with chalk on his boots, Rogers muddying his in the goalmouth is what the team needs.
This debate, Saka versus Rogers, is not one that should keep Tuchel awake at night. It is a nice problem to have - the hope that Saka will return to his best, the expectation that Rogers is still to realise his.
On Sunday, at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid, Rogers has another opportunity to further his claims. He has come a long way since a drab Wednesday night at Peterborough’s London Road in 2021. It is, though, the distance yet travelled that is most exciting.