Bukayo Saka has played against his fair share of top-quality players.
With 226 senior appearances for Arsenal under his belt and 36 senior caps for England to his name, the winger knows what it takes to play in high-level games against top opponents.
In fact, the Englishman has faced off against Manchester City 11 times, being on the losing side on nine occasions.
Now though, with the 22-year-old in with the 14 City players that were selected to feature in the 2024 European Championship, the Gunners star has made a claim regarding one of Pep Guardiola’s key figures at the Etihad Stadium.
Bukayo Saka says Bernardo Silva has the best ball control at the Euros
Featuring in a video shared on the Euro 2024 TikTok page, Saka was asked to stay quiet until he heard the name of the player he thinks has the best first touch and ball control out of anyone currently playing in the tournament.
After remaining silent when players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe and Pedri came up, the Arsenal winger finally relented when Bernardo Silva’s name was mentioned.
Silva’s ball control makes him a special player for City
City paid £43m to sign the midfielder from Monaco back in the 2017 summer transfer window.
Since then, the 29-year-old has made 355 appearances for City across all competitions, scoring 66 goals and providing the same number of assists along the way.
Looking back over the previous Premier League campaign, which saw the Blues win a historic fourth league trophy in a row, Silva had 2194 touches of the ball in total, leaving only 33 players in the division with more.
Across all of those touches, the City star, who Jeremy Doku recently suggested has a better first touch than Ronaldo, only miscontrolled the ball 43 times, resulting in 83 players in the league with more.
In comparison to Saka, the Arsenal attacker miscontrolled the ball 56 times in total last season, despite having fewer touches of the ball (1952) than Silva.
With all of that in mind, it shouldn’t surprise many City fans that Saka has shared his football knowledge and said that Silva has the best ball control and first touch at the Euros.