William Saliba was considered not good enough to start for Arsenal in the first half of the season and the Gunners allowed him to join Nice on loan last month.
When they landed him in 2019, he was one of the best young defenders in France and had been playing regular first-team football for Saint Etienne.
They allowed him to remain with them for the 2019/2020 season and he was expecting to play for the Gunners this season.
Mikel Arteta judged that he wasn’t ready to play for the Gunners yet and he seems to have proven his manager wrong in Ligue 1.
He has been an ever-present in the Nice team since he joined them last month and has been in fine form.
His team has had an inconsistent time in the league, but he has been one of their positives.
The defender has played 10 games for them already and Squawka has just revealed incredibly that he hasn’t been dribbled past in any of those games.
The French top-flight has some of the most skilful attacking players and that makes this stat even more incredible.
Saliba will hope that he can return to the Emirates to first-team chances after his exploits in France.
He might not want to return. We are a mid-table club at best currently but we fail to admit it. Good luck wherever you end up Saliba
The story on here yesterday was that he’s basically useless, because of one mistake mind you, but today he’s the best defender in the world.
That’s exactly what I thought Declan. I thought the two articles must have been written by Jon Fox- he seems to change his mind on a daily basis.
You combine the two stories and the narrative is exactly how Arsenal positioned it – a young player of immense talent with too much immaturity personally and professionally. If he can work on that this season then I can see him returning.
Saliba is good, but need to work on his passing when under pressure, he gave gave his pass to an opponent leading to the goal scored by rennes.
We should have him and holding for the right side next season with Gab and Mari on the left
Its funny, a lot of people say ozil poor form of late is because he hasnt played in a while. Saliba was sent on loan because of this but somehow its the worst idea ever.
His physical presence hasn’t been questioned. He is a big imposing fast cb. The problem lies in erratic mistakes and poor footballing brain. There is no doubt he could become a world class player but developing him here with the season we are having wouldn’t have helped. Trying to integrate both him and Gabriel would be difficult given there age and lack of experience and the same goes with playing them alongside Mari.
So i think you are saying Arteta was right to treat him like a leper, is that right?
just wanted to remind everyone that Mustafi played more than Saliba at Arsenal in the first half of the season. Arteta does not know what he is doing.
I belive dat u cant judge a book by his cover dat wat arteta is doing right now at arsenal.