Gary Neville's Concerns for Saka as England's Wingers Struggle
Bukayo Saka has always been England’s sunshine. The grin, the energy, the sense that at any moment he might twist a game in his favour. In North America, that light looks dimmer.
Gary Neville sees it. So do Ian Wright and Roy Keane. And they’re not whispering their concerns.
A star running on empty
Saka has been carrying a nagging Achilles problem, an injury serious enough for the FA to monitor closely throughout the tournament. Arsenal nursed him through the end of a brutal domestic season; now England are trying to do the same.
Thomas Tuchel has used him in all three group games, but only in carefully measured bursts from the bench. No full-throttle Saka, no 90-minute charge up and down the right. Just controlled minutes, rationed like a precious resource.
Neville, speaking on Stick to Football with Sky Bet, didn’t bother dressing it up.
“Bukayo Saka doesn't look right at all,” he said. “He's usually the boy that's bubbling and smiling, he's got that competitive edge to him, but he's not right and that's a concern to us, I think.”
This isn’t about form alone. It’s about what’s left in the tank.
Saka has already admitted he was “happy to gamble” with his fitness to make this World Cup. Wright, though, wonders if that roll of the dice has gone too far. The former England striker looks at Saka and doesn’t see a winger on the brink of exploding into the tournament. He sees a player who has been run to the edge.
Saka’s minutes were heavily managed during Arsenal’s Premier League run-in. Full matches have become rare. Now, on the biggest stage, the pattern continues.
“We're going into a World Cup, and still not starting the first few games, only starting when we're three games in, and still isn't looking like the Saka that we know – this guy needs a break,” Wright said.
England’s blunt edges out wide
The concern stretches beyond one player. It’s the whole picture on the flanks.
Tuchel has turned to Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke to inject pace and invention. The response has been flat. England’s wide men have flickered, not burned. The result? An attack leaning heavily on Jude Bellingham’s surges and Harry Kane’s moments of clarity.
When the wingers misfire, the whole structure stiffens. England lose their stretch, their chaos, their unpredictability. The ball funnels centrally, where defences are thickest and space is tightest.
Roy Keane doesn’t see this as a minor tactical wrinkle. He sees a fault line that could split open in the knockout rounds.
“The wingers need to grab their opportunity. These players haven't quite grabbed their opportunity yet,” he said. “In the group games, you can maybe slip up in one of them, but now at least one of them has to start turning up.”
The margin for error has vanished.
DR Congo next – but giants loom
England now head to Atlanta for a last-32 tie with DR Congo. On paper, it’s a fixture they should control. In reality, it’s a test of nerve and of depth.
Win, and the route ahead sharpens into focus. A likely collision with Mexico or Ecuador. Then the real heavy traffic: a quarter-final that could bring Brazil, and, if the bracket holds, a semi-final with Lionel Messi’s Argentina.
That’s the road Wright has mapped out from the start. He still backs England to reach the last four, but he draws a hard line there.
“I think if we can get to Brazil we could probably beat Brazil,” he said. “But then I think we’d have problems after that. I said England would reach the semi-final from the start.”
Keane doesn’t even see that semi-final as a contest.
“England would have absolutely no chance of beating Argentina in the semi’s, I just can’t see it,” he stated, blunt as ever.
A race against time
So England stand at a familiar crossroads: big expectations, bigger questions.
Can Tuchel coax a final surge from Saka without breaking him? Can Gordon, Madueke or any of the wide options seize the moment Keane demands? Can England find width, thrust and goals from the flanks before they run into a team that punishes every weakness?
The World Cup will not wait. DR Congo are next, but the real story may be whether England’s wingers can catch fire quickly enough to keep that path to Brazil – and beyond – from closing in front of them.
