Bukayo Saka: 'It’s not easy. But nothing worth having is easy'

"It means everything because these are records that go down in history,” Bukayo Saka says intently as he prepares to play his 83rd consecutive Premier League game for Arsenal against Fulham on Saturday afternoon. A seemingly random number took on fresh meaning for Saka earlier this week when, after a difficult victory over Crystal Palace, he was told that he had just equalled a record set by Paul Merson.

The Saka and Merson eras could hardly be more different. Merson, who played 82 successive matches for Arsenal between February 1995 and February 1997, once told me that, through the lost haze of his drinking and gambling addiction, he could hardly remember anything of his occasionally brilliant career. “That breaks my heart more than anything,” Merson said between the tears as he reflected on his harrowing past.

Ian Wright, who played alongside Merson in his record‑setting run of Premier League games, knows that Saka offers a profound contrast. In the summer of 2021, when Saka was only 19 and in the midst of lighting up the Euros with England, Wright said: “Everybody at Arsenal knows that Saka is burdened with glorious purpose.”

It was a way for Wright to fuse his love of the Marvel movies with his genuine reverence for the ambition, character and skill of Saka. Now, just days before he breaks a relatively innocuous club record, the glorious purpose of Saka continues with renewed intensity both on and off the field. He will soon talk about his commitment to help young entrepreneurs flourish in art and football, fashion and business, the “dream” of reaching the levels of consistency and resilience scaled by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and of Arsenal’s hopes of securing their first Premier League title in more than