Bukayo Saka vs Cole Palmer
Left-footed England attackers born 243 days apart, Saka of Arsenal and Palmer of Chelsea won the same awards a year apart, then each lost months to injury in successive seasons.
By the Oddsivio teamLast reviewed Stats updated
Last season · club and country together · official matches
Who does what?
Bukayo Saka created more chances last season, and they were level on goals. That said, Cole Palmer completed a higher share of passes (85% vs 79%).
Worth knowing: Bukayo Saka had 3,791 minutes to Cole Palmer's 2,443 last season; the bigger sample is the steadier one.
What separates them
2 of 4 pass both our tests: a big enough gap, and sure enough to hold.
- Saka
- Palmer
- Typical forwards
- Goals per 90Level0.3615 goals0.4111 goals
Too small a gap against typical forwards to name a leader.
- Chances created per 90Saka led2.4102 chances1.334 chances
About twice as many chances created: about 35 more over 30 full matches.
Held up next season: about 9 in 10
- Assists per 90Saka slightly ahead0.2611 assists0.113 assists
Gaps like this held up about 6 in 10 times: not often enough to name a leader.
- Pass completion share of passes completedPalmer led79%50%100%85%
Pass completion depends a lot on role and team.
Held up next season: about 9 in 10
Per 90 = per 90 minutes played, so different minutes compare fairly.
Does it hold up?
Without penalties
Too close to call (12 goals to 6).
How they play · volume, not a lead
Bukayo Saka won far more duels (6.1 vs 3.5 per 90) and made far more tackles (1.6 vs 1.0 per 90) last season.
Why this comparison
Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer are in the same school year: Saka was born in Ealing, west London, in September 2001 and Palmer in Wythenshawe, Manchester, in May 2002. Both joined an academy in 2010, Saka at Arsenal and Palmer at Manchester City. Both are left-footed, and both can start on the right and come inside, though Palmer has mostly played as a No 10 since 2024–25. Saka has never played senior football for another club. Palmer played 41 senior games for City without a league goal, then moved to Chelsea on 1 September 2023 for an initial £40m.
Their awards came a year apart. Saka was the PFA Young Player of the Year for 2022–23 and Palmer for 2023–24. Saka was England's men's player of the year for 2021–22 and 2022–23, and Palmer took it for 2023–24, with Saka third. That was when the argument over which of them England should start was loudest: at EURO 2024 Saka started all seven games and Palmer came off the bench in five. Their injury seasons came one after the other too, Saka's in 2024–25 and Palmer's in 2025–26. By October 2026 England's head coach was treating them as players for two different positions.
Every number · last season
| SakaBukayo Saka | Stat | PalmerCole Palmer |
|---|---|---|
3,791 | Minutes | 2,443 |
59 | Matches | 34 |
63.05Important · 40 club games · as of 2026-10-12 | Current squad importance | 73.71Important · 40 club games · as of 2026-10-12 |
0.3615 in total | goals per 90 | 0.4111 in total |
0.2611 in total | assists per 90 | 0.113 in total |
2.4102 in total | chances created per 90 | 1.334 in total |
2.084 in total | shots per 90 | 1.951 in total |
3.8158 in total | take-ons tried per 90 | 2.979 in total |
1.667 in total | tackles per 90 | 1.028 in total |
0.626 in total | interceptions per 90 | 0.616 in total |
6.1255 in total | duels won per 90 | 3.596 in total |
79% | pass completion | 85% |
Goals and assists are counted from match events; the other counts come from the provider's detailed match stats. Squad importance describes the current club role over its recent club-game window; it is independent of the comparison window.
Have they played each other?
Up to 4 October 2026 they had been opponents in five competitive games, all of which are in the list below. The first was the Community Shield of August 2023, when Palmer was still at Manchester City: he came off the bench and scored, Saka set up Leandro Trossard's equaliser in the eleventh minute of added time, and Arsenal won on penalties. The other four are Premier League games between Arsenal and Chelsea. Counting the Community Shield as a draw, Saka's side won two of the five and drew three, so Palmer was never on the winning side. Palmer scored twice, once from a penalty. Saka did not score but set up two late equalisers, both for Trossard. Arsenal and Chelsea played nine times between Palmer's arrival in September 2023 and October 2026, and only four of those games had both players: illness, injury or a place on the bench kept one or both out of the other five, and in the League Cup semi-final of early 2026 Saka played only the first leg and Palmer only the second. As England team-mates they appeared in the same competitive game eight times, all between November 2023 and October 2024, but were on the pitch at the same time in only six of them, because twice Palmer came on in Saka's place. They both started just once, against Greece on 10 October 2024, which was also the last game both played. A friendly against Iceland in June 2024 is not in the list, which counts competitive games. Their next league meeting is due on 13 March 2027, when Chelsea host Arsenal at Stamford Bridge; television or a cup draw could change that.
Looking up their matches…
What the numbers don't show
The 2025–26 figures on the card above come from Palmer's injury season. Transfermarkt counts 26 Chelsea and England games he missed through injury, most of them in an absence from 20 September to the start of December, first with a groin injury and then with a toe he broke at home. He finished with 34 games, 11 goals and three assists for Chelsea, and five of his ten league goals were penalties. Saka played 49 times for Arsenal. The card also counts competitive internationals, and only Saka had any that season: ten England games, seven of them at the World Cup, with four goals and four assists. In club football alone they scored 11 each.
A year earlier it was the other way round. Saka tore a hamstring at Crystal Palace in December 2024, had surgery and missed 19 Arsenal games in a row. Palmer played 52 games for Chelsea in 2024–25, the Club World Cup included, and was player of the match in the two finals that ended it, the Conference League's in May and the Club World Cup's in July. On 4 October 2026 the two-year option on the card took in all of 2025–26 and most of 2024–25.
They do different jobs as well. Our line-up data for the two years to October 2026 has 89% of Saka's minutes on the right wing; Palmer's are 69% as an attacking midfielder and 24% on the right. Saka has had one manager at Arsenal since December 2019, Mikel Arteta. Palmer has had four at Chelsea since 2023, not counting caretakers, and Xabi Alonso, the latest, began 2026–27 with a second No 10, Morgan Rogers, beside him. On the Premier League's figures for 2023–24 to 2025–26, Saka took 248 corners to Palmer's 134, and Palmer had 29 shots from direct free kicks to Saka's three.
Estimated value
Bukayo Saka's Oddsivio estimated value is higher: €120m (#10 of 9,335 players valued) to Cole Palmer's €85m (#31 of 9,335 players valued). Saka's estimate dipped 7% since season start; Palmer's estimate held steady since season start.Oddsivio estimated value — a model estimate from recent performance data, not betting advice.
Bukayo Saka
Oddsivio estimated value
€120m
−7% since season start
#10 of 9,335 players valued#6 of 495 in the Premier League
Cole Palmer
Oddsivio estimated value
€85m
0% since season start
#31 of 9,335 players valued#16 of 495 in the Premier League
Questions fans ask
Who is better, Saka or Palmer?
This page does not pick one; the card at the top says which of them the numbers favour, if either, in the period you select. Published rankings have mostly followed fitness. The Guardian's annual ranking of the 100 best male footballers had Palmer 12th and Saka 13th at the end of 2024; a year later Palmer was still 12th and Saka, who had missed three months after a hamstring operation, was 26th. ESPN's list by position in August 2026, after Palmer's injury season, had Saka seventh among wide forwards and did not include Palmer. In the Ballon d'Or, Saka's best finish is 21st, in 2024, when Palmer was 25th; Palmer was eighth in 2025, when Saka was not nominated; and neither made the 30-man shortlist for 2026. Cesc Fàbregas, who played for both Arsenal and Chelsea, wrote in October 2024 that there was no need to compare them and that England were lucky to have two such talents.
Who has the better stats, Saka or Palmer?
It depends on the season, and on whether penalties count. Over the three Premier League seasons from 2023–24 to 2025–26, on the league's own figures, Palmer scored 47 goals and set up 20 in 97 games, and Saka scored 29 and set up 24 in 91. Take penalties out and it is 29 goals for Palmer and 21 for Saka. The gap moves from year to year: in 2023–24 Palmer had 22 league goals and 11 assists to Saka's 16 and nine, and in 2025–26, his injury season, ten and one to Saka's seven and five. Over their whole Premier League careers up to 20 September 2026, the last weekend before the international break, Saka had 63 goals and 50 assists in 231 games and Palmer 49 goals and 23 assists in 120. For the new season, pick 2026/27 on the card at the top, which is refreshed every night. By that date Saka had three goals in five league games and Palmer two goals and two assists in five.
Saka or Palmer for England: who plays on the right?
Of the two, it has been Saka under Thomas Tuchel, England's head coach since the start of 2025. He started on the right in all three Nations League games England played between 26 September and 3 October 2026 and scored twice in the 7–0 win in Croatia. Tuchel has called the No 10 role Palmer's best position, where the competition includes Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze. He left Palmer out of the 2026 World Cup squad, saying that his form at Chelsea had dropped, that he had not had enough influence in England's camps and that he would not pick players to use them out of position. He recalled him on 18 September 2026, and Palmer withdrew three days later with a minor muscle injury. Tuchel said afterwards that Palmer was missing too many camps, that he did not blame him and understood he had been playing in pain, but that he could rely only on what he saw of players in camp. The two have started together for England once, under the interim coach Lee Carsley against Greece in October 2024, with Palmer in midfield, and up to 4 October 2026 they had not shared the pitch under Tuchel. At the World Cup Saka, who was managing an Achilles problem, started three of England's eight games and scored a hat-trick against France in the third-place match.
Have Saka and Palmer played against each other?
Yes, five times by 4 October 2026, all in competitive games: the 2023 Community Shield, in which Palmer played for Manchester City, and four Premier League games between Arsenal and Chelsea. Arsenal won two and three were drawn, one of the draws being the Community Shield, which Arsenal then took on penalties. Palmer scored twice in them, once from the spot, and Saka set up two goals. For England they have both played in the same competitive game eight times, and were on the pitch together in six of them. The list further up the page is updated overnight after each new meeting.
How many of Saka's and Palmer's goals are penalties?
More of Palmer's than of Saka's. On the Premier League's figures at the start of October 2026, 18 of Palmer's 49 league goals were penalties, a little over a third, and 13 of Saka's 63, about a fifth. Palmer scored his first 12 Premier League penalties, then had one saved against Leicester in March 2025 and another against Nottingham Forest in May 2026: 18 scored from 20. Saka has scored 13 from 14 in the league and missed at West Ham in April 2023. In 2025–26 half of Palmer's ten league goals came from the spot; the card has a line that leaves penalties out. In shoot-outs for England, Saka had his kick saved in the EURO 2020 final, and both scored against Switzerland in the EURO 2024 quarter-final.
What have Saka and Palmer won?
Up to October 2026 all of Saka's club medals are with Arsenal: the 2025–26 Premier League, the 2020 FA Cup, when he was an unused substitute in the final, and three Community Shields. Arsenal also lost two finals in 2025–26, the Champions League's on penalties and the League Cup's. Palmer was in the Manchester City squad that won the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League in 2022–23, playing 25 games that season but staying on the bench in both finals, and he scored in City's UEFA Super Cup win in August 2023. With Chelsea he won the Conference League and the Club World Cup in 2025, was player of the match in both finals and was named the Club World Cup's best player. He also started two finals that Chelsea lost, the League Cup's in 2024 and the FA Cup's in 2026. With England both were runners-up at EURO 2024, where Palmer scored in the final; Saka was also a runner-up at EURO 2020 and finished third at the 2026 World Cup, and Palmer won the European Under-21 Championship in 2023. Individually, each has been the PFA Young Player of the Year and England's men's player of the year; Saka was in the PFA Team of the Year for 2022–23, and Palmer in FIFA's and FIFPRO's world elevens for 2025.