Wesley Fofana has taken a swipe at Arsenal by claiming that William Saliba is “finally free”.
Saliba has completed a loan move to Nice after he failed to make a single appearance for the Gunners this season.
Fofana and Saliba were defence partners at Saint Etienne and Saliba was regarded higher than Fofana. Both made moves to the Premier League.
While Fofana has become a regular at Leicester City this season, Saliba hasn’t played for Arsenal and he wasn’t even registered for their Europa League squad this season.
Saliba had previously complained about being locked up at Arsenal as he struggled to play or to leave the club.
He is now set to spend the rest of the season at Nice and Fofana was happy for him.
He took to his Instagram account to celebrate the freedom of his former teammate who will now be able to play first-team football.
He posted an image of Arsenal and captioned it: “He is finally free”, complete with heart-eyes and party emojis.
Saliba will hope that he can break into the Nice first team and get the needed minutes that would help him return to Arsenal as ready-made first team material.
Turning into quite the blemish how this is being handled. Hard to believe he’s not deemed good enough to get any minutes, even as a sub.
Seems players, scouts, even other clubs rate him, yet Arteta doesn’t. Keep in mind that Willock and Nketiah are considered “ready” despite showing little to nothing in PL.
The fact Saliba wasn’t deemed ready for early Europa games is laughable; even Arteta admits that was a mistake. Edu now doing damage control with the situation.
Hopefully he gets a chance with Arsenal to prove himself before being prematurely discarded due to such poor man management.
Wenger never got 11 of his first choice players, he had to settle for much less on his shopping list. Think Arteta should do his job and coach up the talent at his disposal, rather than dream over £50 million dollar players he prefers. He should have waited at City if that’s his recruitment plan.
how ironic you would say that “Wenger never got 11 of his first choice players” considering he very rarely started his best 11 during his latter years…it was so infuriating
Wenger had more than 20 years doing whatever he wanted. How many times season after season would be infuriate and frustrate all of us, pundits, ex players etc?
Everyone kept begging him to sign a solid CB, a solid Goal keeper and a DM.
And these players were not as expensive back then. But he continually showed his arrogance by refusing to address these problem areas. Choosing to go for the likes of Song, Denilson, Arteta as defensive midfielders. Or him converting CMs or AM’s into wingers, deep lying midfielders etc instead or actually buying natural DMs.
Refused to buy any mature experienced Goalkeeper for a decade while sticking with youngster inexperience (Fabianski, Szny, Manone, and then some stinkers like ALMUNIA.
Wenger has no leg to stand on whatsoever he played a big part in us becoming a joke club that we are today.
I love and respect Wenger but that does not mean I have to continually try to delude myself like he did not contribute to our demise.
How many times since 2006 when we moved to the emirates until
You could not manage to “p#ss off” a young up and coming player more, moving to your club, if Arsenal had planned it.
Firstly you can’t come to an arrangement with St Ettienne for your “high value asset” Saliba, to play in the French cup final, the most important game in his short career.
Despite the need to protect this “high value asset”, Saliba is deemed not good enough to warrant a squad place with Arsenal in the EPL (currently 11th) or the Europa League, yet his lower rated ex team mate Fofana, is playing regularly for Leicester City (currently 4th) under Brendan Rodgers.
Wesley Fofana is not the only one, who sees Arsenal’s and Arteta’s treatment of Saliba as poor. The Club and manager’s explanations, in my view, have been underwhelming.
Like Admin Martin, I hope William Saliba spends his loan to Lille well and returns to Arsenal next season determined to make his mark and prove the Club management wrong. The alternative, if the apparent slur has been too great, is that Saliba seeks to leave Arsenal at the earliest opportunity. In this case Arsenal would have blown the chance to have a right footed quality promising CB serve the Club for many years.
Sorry Nice, not Lille! 🙄
We shouldn’t be surprised if this transaction triggers a large write down in the player’s valuation of 27M. When added to the loss in our valuation of Pepe, losses on just players could exceed 60M – two own goals.
Saliba has never been given a chance and his ex team mates comments are justified but it is worth noting that Emery signed Saliba and he went shortly afterwards so Arteta is not to blame for the situation.
Mustafi and Luis will both go at the end of the season and then Afc will need Saliba to jion Gabriel,Holding and Pablo as half backs foe the squad.
Saka has shown that if you perform you will soon keep your spot as he is now Artetas choice before Willian and Pepe.
So i hope Saliba enjoys his loan in France and comes back and is a vital player in Afcs squad.
Why is Arteta not part of the problem, when he rejected a player just because he was signed under his predecessor’s tenure?
So was Tierney signed for Emery, but as we know Emery was expected as “head coach” to select and coach players recruited by others. You can’t just throw young players on the scrap heap, because you did not recruit them.
Now imagine if one of your buddies got drunk one night and accidentally shot himself in the foot…of course he claimed that he immediately disposed of the gun in question, quit drinking altogether and vehemently promised that this foolishness would never happen again…now imagine if that same friend shot himself in the same foot again, then again, then again, then again…
Doesn’t this all stem from Saliba’s social media use and complaining about Arteta? From what I read, Ozil, Guendouzi, Sokratis and Saliba have been malcontents and have created tension in the locker room.
Seems to me, this more than anything, is what Arteta is coming down hard on. You could argue too hard, but still, this has been a team that has gotten away with too much and I think that’s what Arteta is trying to put an end to. He’s pushing for more accountability and unity.
Saliba wont put on an Arsenal shirt, he will be loaned out and eventually sold.
If I were Saliba, I would not want to play for Arsenal after the way this has been handled.
I also think Guenduzi will be loaned out until sold,another young player handled badly.
If I were Guenduzi, I would not want to wear the Arsenal shirt again.
Also would Arsenal want them after there public scrutiny of Arsenal?
I think loaning them out is to pish up their value.
Unfortunately, Mambo both Saliba and Guendouzi have the ability to come back to bite the Club on the arse nal.
Im a massive Gouendouzi fan and also thin Saliba has been treated like dirt as well. The fact is is doesn’t matter about anyone or anything as long as Arteta is successful. If he is successful we cant argue, if he isnt then the damage is probably unrepairable. We want to attract the best young talent, will they want to come seeing how these are being treated? I hope for alls sake that these situations are not damaging and are actually being handled better than it seems.
All these posts from people who don’t know the facts and just posting based on ignorance and conjecture. Didn’t he recently lose both parents, or perhaps it was just one, which makes his loss only half as bad? Reggie’s final sentence puts some sense to the situation but I would hope that the club issues a statement at some point to explain things.
Declan, most of us are concerned for William Saliba’s welfare and worried that Arsenal will throw away a hot prospect.
Matteo will come back to Arsenal in the summer a better, more experienced player to work with. He knows Arsenal is a good club to male your name and he will do just that. Arteta knows he is a good player and this loan is perfect for everybody aswell as the Saliba deal.
William needs to play, needs to comfortable again on the pitch and the best surroundings is home in France to be closer to his family to get his head screwed on.
Mavraponas another who all 3 will be needed come the summer as we know all the out of contractors plus Elneny, Laca in last year of deals & Cabellos goes back to Madrid.
Torreira still has to come back. All of these players have re sale value if worst comes to worst and they all want to leave too but wont be cheaply esp now for Matteo who’s playing really well and France u21 Capt.
Has been handled awfully but maybe come the summer when everyone has cooled off and back for pre season and the restart commences properly.
Come pre season…
Gone;
Mustafi
Kolasnic
Papa
Ozil
Luiz
Chambers (Maybe)
Willian (Maybe)
Pepe (Maybe)
Returning;
Saliba
Mavraponas
Torriera
Matteo
Build around;
Tierney
Gabriel
Mari
Holding
Partey
AMN
SmithRowe
Saka
Martinelli
Bologun
Nelson
Laca… 2year extension!
Auba, Leno, Xhaka, Bellerin are all here also with a few possible signings.
Sorry but I take a completely different view from those on here who seem to think we fans should be told what is the whole problem with Saliba.
Whatever happened to confidentiality I ask myself! And I ask you nosy fans too!
Who among you would welcome your personal business being shared among possibly millions of fans who you have never met nor probably never will?
I say mind your own damned busines and let the man who is paid to run our team, MA – as he knows the full facts which NONE of us do – do the job he is paid to do, while we SUPPORTERS do the job we are supposed to do, actually support the club we claim to love.
Sorry if that offends some of you but WS’s personal business is not OUR business .
It IS however the business of WS and MA. AND TO MY SOBER AND MATURE MIND, THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD REMAIN!