Is there anything more wholesome to see than a Bukayo Saka smiling back at you from the club cameraman’s picture at London Colney, to confirm that he’s back in full training?

And I have to say, you have to marvel at the club’s medical team for their accuracy on this return. Now, of course, he won’t be match fit, he’ll be eased in to games, but from an early part in the year we were given a rough timeline of end of March and here we are, on the 28th of the month and here he is, in training and ready to play a part in the remainder of the season. The data, the recovery process knowledge, the ability to accurately predict when the human body would be ready to be back in to training and contributing is quite impressive, really, when you think about it. I know over the years we’ve heard things like “setback” and alike, but when it all goes like this and this precise in terms of the recovery, well, I have to admit I am impressed.

Saka himself is clearly delighted. His body had stopped him from doing his job for the best part of a third of a season. He’s now got a big scar running down his leg. But he won’t care and he’ll hopefully be part of the squad on Tuesday when we play Fulham. I don’t think any of us think he’ll play any kind of meaningful part, but even if we can get him on the pitch for five minutes, that would be amazing. And the reception he’ll get will be huge too.

And let’s just remind ourselves what we’re getting back here – a guy with nine goals and 13 assists in all competitions – where he’d only played 24 games. He was basically averaging a goal or assist every game and when you think about what he did last season (20 goals and 14 assists in 47 games), had he stayed fit and played this whole time, I’m pretty sure we’d be talking about another season where he’d broken his personal best for goals and assists. He’s already only one assist away from matching last season. He’ll unlikely get to 20 goals from last season given the recovery time needed and the fact we’re running out of games, but when you think about what we’ve seen from the other elite players in the Premier League, I’m pretty sure Saka would be up there in matching what they are doing.

I’m projecting, i’m hypothesizing, I’m perhaps doing a bit of navel gazing, but I don’t care – Saka would have easily have added 10 goals and probably another five assists to our season tally so far. Then you start to think about what that could have done to our season and you start to really lament what has been such an unfortunate one for us in 2024/25. Imagine what an extra goal could have done for Brighton away, Villa at home, West Ham at home, Forest away, Man United away? That right there turns four points in to 11 points and suddenly we’re on 60 points. It would still mean we’re nine off a Liverpool side that have had everything go their way this season, but Saka brings other players up, he lifts those around him and our performances across the board would have seen a marked improvement.

It will also mean we have more options from the bench. Nwaneri has been great, but I suspect he’ll become a little bit more of an impact player once Saka is back up to speed, whereas Odegaard will obviously play, but I think we’ll start to see him having more of an impact too. I wonder as well what it does for Ben White? He’s been good as an overlapping fullback for Saka, but we haven’t seen Timber do it as much. White has not quite managed to wrestle the right back starting jersey off the Dutchman yet, but could Saka’s arrival spell more game time for Benny Blanco? It wouldn’t surprise me. Then there’s the fact that Saka gets doubled up on by players, which creates more space for the likes of Martinelli or Trossard on the other side of the pitch. All of these factors now come back in to play with his re-introduction to the first team squad.

Oh if only we’d have had Saka for the season as a whole!

That’s looking longingly into the hindsight mirror though, which does nobody any good, so let’s instead look forward. Arsenal have the Starboy back and hopefully, when you look at that Real Madrid game looming on the horizon in just under two week’s time, we have him back and firing on all cylinders – or at least half cylinders – for when we face what could be a season-defining game against the Spanish Champions and easy favourites for this competition now.

Right, what else is going on then, eh? Not a lot it looks like – so I think I’ll pause for today and let you go about your daily duties. Have yourself a grand one and I’ll be back tomorrow.