Could an injury crisis at Arsenal see Saliba come to the fore? (Opinion)

Arsenal signed William Saliba last summer with so many positive reviews made about the transfer, but he is yet to make his first-team bow.

The Frenchman had broken into the Saint Etienne first team as a teenage star, and he was expected to come straight into a struggling Arsenal defence when he eventually joined up with the rest of his teammates.

He arrived at Arsenal after the club had fired the manager that signed him, Unai Emery, and he is now left with the task of impressing the demanding Mikel Arteta.

The Spaniard had earned the right to pick any player that he wants for his team after winning the FA Cup and the Community Shield for the club. Saliba came in to realize that his hype didn’t amount to much for Arteta and the Spaniard has deemed him not ready for action.

He has since been omitted from Arsenal’s Europa League team, and he has been relegated to playing football in the Premier League 2. For now, he isn’t good enough to play for the team, I wonder if that decision has some bias to it.

I am curious, what if Arsenal suffers an injury crisis like Liverpool is going through now, would Saliba all of a sudden become ready to play for the club?

Martin

Tags William Saliba

23 Comments

  1. Worth a go

    On a separate note. If we don’t win today thats 100% our top 4 chances gone!

    Yes it’s early but every week we getting another point or 2 behind

    1. As if it wasn’t already a must win game, it certainly is now!! So soon into the season and we’re already at the stage where we can’t afford to drop any more points!
      Got a horrible run of fixtures ahead, best we pull our fingers out and start bloody performing! If we lose later, it’ll be our 5th loss 😳 COYG

      1. Sue We already loaned him back to them now he is on about loaning him again what was the point of buying him. I keep saying why buy from abroad if we bought from the EPL they would go straight in the squad and are up to EPL standard

  2. We don’t need an injury crisis – we have more than enough problems already!!

    Give him a go! Would love to see him with Gabriel – that was the plan after all

  3. Let’s give him a go Arteta you know that you can make is talent lost so don’t be the one to blame about is feature give him chance we want to see why we bought him

  4. We do not need any more injuries at all. Partey’s injury is a huge blow already.

    I think Arteta is seeing differently from us with Saliba but not withstanding Saliba needs a run of games.
    There is still a lot of games to be played so we will surely see him play.

    I am scared of the Leeds game today but I am trying to be positive. We do not need any loss.

    1. Sue, we have to win because if we don’t it will be very difficult for anyone here to come to Arteta defense. I watched Brighton take the game to Villa yesterday and I fear for my darling Arsenal. If Brighton could do that to a team who wiped the floor with us at Emirate how are we going finish above 10th place is unthinkable. We are better all those teams but they found away to give a performance and results that we can only dream of.

      1. The two sides I watched a lot this season are Brighton and Southampton. They remind me of the old Arsenal, with fluid dynamics.

        They play better football then most of the teams this season. Brightons problem is keeping the backdoor shut.

        We are well on schedule to lose more than 10 games this season. No top 4 for us.

      2. Yes Brighton certainly did take the game to Villa, they were really good.
        I couldn’t believe how good Villa were against us and then yesterday whatever they tried, they couldn’t pull it off… funny old game!
        If we roll up at any ground and play the way we did against Villa, we won’t win another point, let alone 3! Leeds will be all over us later.. and as we never know which Arsenal will turn up, I’m anxious.. it’s come to something that I’m worrying about playing a newly promoted team!

  5. Why not! Since this season will once again turn out to be,'” Construction Time Again”, the sooner Ssliba is blooded the better. As some above have pointed out, he couldn’t be worse and the manager needs to know exactly how raw he is.

  6. Also, if the rumours of David Luiz decking Ceballos are true shouldn’t he be given the Gandouzi treatment and put in in the dog house regardless of the fact that the veteran centre half is our most creative player.

  7. Save, the 2 Arsenal defenders of Chambers who is still struggling to have first team match action fitness to comeback for Arsenal this season, and Pablo Mari who is reportedly still with injury to remain on the sideline. I don’t think Arsenal are having any defensive personnel crisis on their hands to contend with that will make Arteta to call on Saliba for our away match to Leeds Utd in the PL this afternoon.

    But things can change quickly in football. Therefore, I will be least surprised if I see Saliba on the bench today for Leeds. But having said this, I think it’s unlikely us will see Saliba on the bench today. Talkless of to see him starting the Leeds match. For, Arsenal have all their defense-line positions covered with a decent senior team defence Gunners who are available for selection for Leeds.

    And I don’t see Arteta deviating from selecting these available and ready to play Gunners today. Who by all accounts must have trained very well for the Leeds match and are fully ready to play in it today.

    So, in the main time, let’s forget about Saliba but continue to keep him in view until when Arteta will deem him fit enough and ready to play for Arsenal in the PL. Which I think could happen during the 2nd half of this season’s campaign.

    What I think is of a great importance to Arsenal now and today in the PL is for Arsenal to beat Leeds at Elland Road to the collection of all the 3 points that will be put down as the stake in the match.

    Which Arsenal MUST collect them unfailingly to go to the 15 points today they should have gone to and even surpassed that had they beaten Leicester and Villa at the Ems before the recently concluded international break that left some serious pains to feel at Arsenal.

  8. Arteta is very biased on individuals he doesn’t like…..
    Martineli played zero while Nkettiah was playing every week it took Auba’s red card to give marti a run of games…when he ran out of options and was forced to play him
    What did guendouzi do?
    I followed saliba during his loan spell and he was class
    I don’t understand most players preference

  9. @Joe S.
    Remember Cebbalos in now looking to have the habits of confrontations with his fellow Gunners team mates He once reported to have confronted Eddie Nketiah with a fight in a Arsenal PL warm up outing by the Gunners after Nketiah had protest to him Cebbalos of his dangerously tackling him. But thank God, Kolasinac separated the duo from having a fight. This is the same kind of dangerous tackle that he Cebbalos was reportedly said to have done to Luiz. But the Brazilian will have none of that from him according to media reports. I think Cebbalos should be the one who Arteta should caution to desist from his dangerous tackles of his fellow Gunners in Arsenal warm ups and training sessions. But not to Luiz who merely defended himself from Cebbalos’ insane tackling antics.

  10. I hope to see Saliba too. But from what I have read, his U23 performances are not exactly generating rave reviews are they? A loan is the best option at the moment cause there seems to be a lot going through the boy’s mind and recent speculation at the club hasn’t helped his cause. I would love for him to be a starter for us alongside Gabriel, but it is looking more and more unlikely this season.

  11. Is Saliba permitted to play in the PL? I thought he hadn’t been registered yet. If he’s allowed then of course give him a game or two.
    I’d previously (some weeks ago) said he couldn’t be bothered to learn to speak English so shouldn’t be in the squad and then retracted it and now discover that I was originally correct…he can’t/won’t speak our language. Story of my life really.😂

  12. If Saliba can’t speak English, that may be a slight issue, but I think the main issue is Arsenal plays a 3 man defense, Saliba is too inexperienced for that, when we play a 4 man defensive line up then Saliba would be a good fit,

    The midfield is where the major problem is, we need more box to box players, Arteta needs to include Maitland-Niles/Willock, the more this guys play the better they become.

    Leicester and villa beat us because they had more box to box players, who were daring and had energy,

    Saka gets too much of the ball which wares him out quickly, he should be close to the 18yard box not deep in the midfield.

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