Arsenal Hero Wright Backs Africa's Most Expensive Player To Start Ahead Of Saka Vs Chelsea

Arsenal legend Ian Wright has tipped Africa's most expensive player in history, Nicolas Pepe to start ahead of Bukayo Saka in this evening's FA Cup showdown between the Gunners and Chelsea at Wembley.

Saka has featured in 38 games across all competitions this term, of which 29 were starts with three of them coming in the FA Cup in matches against Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Sheffield United.

"I think he’ll probably go with experience because I think if you start Saka or Eddie – and this is just my opinion – it wouldn’t surprise me if he started Saka because he seems like he can deal with anything and it’s the same with Eddie, they look like they can probably deal with anything," Wright said to Arseblog (via Metro UK).

"But if you start a young player in a final like this and it’s not going right and they have to get substituted somewhere along the line, it could have some damage there with people and how they may judge their character in respects of a big game."

He added : "I think to start for this one, depending on how Chelsea start because they could fly out the blocks and really try and blast us, I think it wouldn’t be a bad thing to go with experience so he probably would go with Pepe, Lacazette and Aubameyang."

Last season, Hale End Academy product Saka was a non-playing substitute as Arsenal lost to Chelsea in the Europa League final.

Igho Kingsley

Photo Credit : arsenal.com