Bukayo Saka believes Eddie Nketiah earned Saturday’s hat-trick with the work he puts in every day on the training ground for Arsenal.

Eddie Nketiah scored a hat-trick for Arsenal against Sheffield United on Saturday, his first in the Premier League, helping his team to a 5-0 win.

Bukayo Saka would have been particularly pleased to see his teammate score three times, for a number of reasons.

For a start, Saka was captaining Arsenal on the day, and it’s never a bad thing to captain your team to a comfortable win.

Saka and Nketiah are also former academy teammates, so they’ll have a particular investment in seeing each other succeed.

But more than that, Saka told the media after the game that Nketiah is relentless behind the scenes, and he earned his goals.

“Three great goals,” Saka said. “Especially the last one. It was unbelievable. That’s a man playing with confidence and hopefully, he can continue to play like that.

“He’s also a man who works so hard, day in, day out. Not everyone sees it but I see it and if you ask the boys, they see it. He deserves this moment and he needs to enjoy it tonight for sure.”

Nketiah now has five league goals for Arsenal this season, and he’s been particularly effective in Gabriel Jesus’ absence, when he’s been most needed.

Jesus was only fit to play a single minute of Arsenal’s opening three games of the season, against Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace, and Fulham.

Nketiah scored against Forest, won the match-winning penalty against Palace, then scored another against Fulham.

With Jesus back on the sidelines this weekend, Nketiah returned to the goals with a hat-trick against Sheffield United.

The striker is now Arsenal’s joint-top scorer in all competitions this season, drawing level with Saka on five goals.