Move aside Bukayo Saka, this Bristol City ace ranks above Arsenal’s Champions League hero with impressive record

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The footballing world is praising Bukayo Saka this week after he helped guide Arsenal to a famous victory over Real Madrid and take the Gunners to the Champions League semi-finals, but one Bristol City ace deserves some credit, too.

Arsenal completed an historic double over the Spanish giants over the last fortnight, with Mike Arteta’s side triumphing 5-1 over the two legs to blow Madrid out of the water.

Bukayo Saka is Arsenal’s main man, of course, and rightly so. The young winger is scoring goals, creating chances, and appears to be Arteta’s top talisman right now.

He may be one of the best players in the world at the moment, but if you narrow it all down to one specific statistic, he wouldn’t even make the top three for best players in the Championship.

That may be overstating it, but there’s actually a Bristol City ace who beats Saka in one department.

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Jason Knight ranks higher than Bukayo Saka in one area

As per data from Football Observatory, when you look at players born in 2001, Bristol City’s Jason Knight actually ranks third in the world for appearances made among peers of his own age.

Knight’s 303 appearances for the Robins can only be beaten by Real Madrid’s Rodrygo (379) and Real Sociedad’s Takefusa Kubo (326). Bukayo Saka is just behind, with 302 appearances to his name.

Interestingly, though, no one can match Knight when it comes to games per year, with the Bristol City man registering an average of 53.2 matches each year in his career, having started playing at the age of 18 compared to Saka, who was 17-years-old, and Rodrygo, who was 16-years-old.

Knight has also outdone the likes of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (284), Brennan Johnson (274), William Saliba (274), and Manuel Ugarte (270) by quite some distance.

Of course, it helps to be playing in the Championship, where there are lots of games each season.

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Bristol City’s squad is quietly impressive

Bristol City have put together a very impressive campaign so far, and it could go from a good season to a great one in the next few weeks.

There’s no doubt that Bristol City were the underdogs for promotion earlier in the year, but now Liam Manning’s side are becoming strong favourites to secure a play-off place.

The Robins are currently fifth in the league table with four games to go, and Bristol City now just need a few more points to end up in the top six and go on the hunt of promotion via that route.

They’ve done it all with a relatively unremarkable squad, too. No one would necessarily highlight any Bristol City player as one of the standout names in the division, but they are well-organised, hard-working, and have great cohesion which helps them grind out results.

The likes of Jason Knight are prime examples of this. He’s a player who gets the job done, and embodies the team spirit that carries Bristol City forward.