Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka can join Dennis Bergkamp and Harry Kane in an exclusive Premier League goalscoring club in Monday's clash with Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.
The 22-year-old continues to outline his credentials as one of the best players in the land with an exceptional 16 goals and 13 assists from 34 matches in all tournaments for Mikel Arteta's side during the current campaign.
Thirteen of those efforts and eight of those assists have come in 25 Premier League appearances for Saka, who has hit a rich vein of scoring form with seven goals in his last five top-flight outings.
That hot streak includes braces in both of Arsenal's most recent away games, a 6-0 thrashing of West Ham United to match their biggest league away win of all time, and the subsequent 5-0 crushing of Burnley.
Saka also got the Emirates crowd off their feet with a goal in last weekend's 4-1 win over Newcastle United, thereby netting for the fifth Premier League game in a row, the first English player to do so for Arsenal since Ian Wright in 1994.
The Hale End graduate could now etch his name into another chapter of history, as he is on the cusp of becoming just the third player in Premier League history to score multiple goals in three successive away games in the tournament.
Only ex-Arsenal striker Bergkamp and erstwhile Tottenham talisman Kane have achieved the feat in the Premier League, the former doing so against Chelsea, Leicester City and Southampton in the 1997-98 campaign.
Meanwhile, Kane - the second-highest scorer in Premier League history - emulated Bergkamp's feat 20 years later, hitting braces against Everton, West Ham United and Huddersfield Town in the 2017-18 season.
Saka will bid to become the third member of that exclusive crowd at a ground where Sheffield United have conceded five goals in each of their last three games, suffering two drubbings at the hands of Brighton & Hove Albion and a 5-0 loss to Aston Villa.
The Blades could become the first team in the history of the English Football League to concede at least five goals in four straight home games in all tournaments, while Arsenal are out to win a third successive away match by at least five goals, an achievement no team in the country has ever accomplished.
Arteta's men demolished Sheffield United 5-0 at the Emirates back in October, but the Spaniard still expects the Blades to put up a "really tough" fight as they scrap for survival at the bottom of the table.
"They're a really difficult team to beat. I've watched four or five games now with the City game, the way they started against Villa, and then obviously the game took a different route, but as you mentioned they are extremely well coached," Arteta told his pre-game press conference.
"I know Chris [Wilder] really well and I admire his teams, a lot of things that he does with them. It will be Monday night football and it's going to be a tough night.
"With every team, we look at the weaknesses and the strengths and try to take the game to the opponent but I'm saying this because I know that team really well. I analysed it many years ago as well, the things that Chris did, and I learned from his teams. I'm telling you, it's going to be a really tough match."
Arsenal enter Monday's game five points behind Liverpool and four points worse off than Manchester City in third place, but they are yet to drop a Premier League point in 2024. body check tags ::
