Philip Foden vs Bukayo Saka

Phil Foden, born in Stockport in May 2000, joined Manchester City's academy at eight; Bukayo Saka, 15 months younger, came through Arsenal's. Both first played for their clubs at 17, Foden in November 2017 and Saka a year later. Mikel Arteta links the two careers. As Pep Guardiola's assistant at City he said in October 2019 that Foden's potential was limitless; two months later Arsenal appointed him head coach, and he has managed Saka ever since. They first met in a senior game at the Emirates on 15 December 2019, when City won 3–0 with Arteta still on their bench. Since Guardiola left in 2026, City have been coached by another of his former assistants, Enzo Maresca.

For England they were rarely after the same shirt. Saka plays on the right; Foden has been used on both wings, as a No 10 and as a false nine, and before EURO 2024 Gareth Southgate said the key was where Foden ended up, not where he started. At that tournament both started all seven games, Foden on the left in the first four. Thomas Tuchel, head coach from 2025, said he did not see Foden as a winger, and on 22 May 2026, the day City announced Guardiola's departure, he named a World Cup squad with Saka in it and without Foden.

The 2025/26 figures on the card hold two very different halves of Foden's season. He scored eight goals in nine City games between 5 November and 14 December 2025, and none in his 29 City games after that or his two England games in March. In May 2026 Guardiola said Foden needed to rediscover the joy he had playing as a boy, in the streets, at school or in City's academy, and that when he did, he would explode again. In the Premier League they finished 2025–26 level, seven goals and five assists each. Foden's lead in pass completion owes something to where he plays: in our line-up data for the two years to 12 October 2026, 44% of his minutes were in central midfield, 20% on the right wing and 13% as an attacking midfielder.

Their best seasons came in the same year. In 2023–24 Foden scored 27 goals for City and won the Premier League's player of the season award, the football writers' award and the PFA's players' award, as City beat Arsenal to the title by two points. Saka scored 16 league goals that season to Foden's 19, and an analysis on the Premier League's website in March 2024 argued he was having the better season, pointing to the league's highest expected-assists figure and the most touches in the opposition box.

Saka lost three months of 2024–25 to hamstring surgery; Foden called that season frustrating, citing an ankle injury and, in his words, things going on off the pitch. Arsenal won the 2025–26 title seven points clear of City, who won both domestic cups, with Foden coming off the bench in the 90th minute of one final and unused in the other. On 13 September 2026 he was sent off at Old Trafford for kicking out at Bruno Fernandes, the first City player dismissed in a top-flight Manchester derby since 2006, and missed three games.