WE TALK TO BUKAYO SAKA ABOUT THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, DEALING WITH INJURY SETBACKS AND GEARING UP FOR BIG-GAME MOMENTS
When he looks back to last season's Champions League campaign, there are some moments that will live with Bukayo Saka forever.
The atmosphere and performance against Real Madrid at Emirates Stadium for the first leg of the quarter-final is obviously one of them. The following week wasn't bad either, when he scored on his first appearance in the Bernabeu to help seal our place in the last four.
That's not to mention his free-kick goal against Paris Saint-Germain in the league phase, scoring in the 5-1 demolition of Sporting in Lisbon, and netting a brace against Monaco.
But Bukayo's mentality is such that it's the disappointment against eventual champions PSG in the semi-final that is uppermost in his mind right now, as he looks to use that pain as fuel for this season's tilt at European glory.
We narrowly lost both legs against the recent European Super Cup winners, losing 1-0 at Emirates Stadium before going down 2-1 in the French capital a week later.
In both games though we outperformed our opponents in terms of expected goals and attacking stats. But that, of course, counted for nothing when the final whistle blew, and Bukayo isn't interested in taking anything from those games other than confirmation that we need to improve.
"It's not really nice to always be coming so close and constantly having to take encouragement from it," he says. "I feel like it's more on us and we know what we have to improve.
"In the end, you're either in or you're out. You can take your lessons, learn from them and make sure they don't happen again. That's the best thing we can do.
"That semi-final was literally just decided in the penalty boxes. Obviously, their keeper had a worldie of a game and made some incredible saves. But it's down to us. We had enough chances to go through to the final. We just needed to put the ball in the net. When we had the chances, we didn't take them. I think that's the biggest lesson."