William Saliba has earned Nice’s Player of the Month award for January as his fine form continues, Sun Sports reports.
The defender joined the French strugglers in the last transfer window as he sought to get more playing time.
He spent the first half of the campaign not involved in first-team football as Mikel Arteta insisted that he wasn’t ready for it at Arsenal.
After a few games for the Arsenal Under23s, the Gunners allowed him to join Nice for the rest of the season.
He went straight into their starting XI after joining them and has been an important first-team member for them since then.
They didn’t have the best of months as they won just one of five matches and slipped down the league table to 14th.
They were beaten by Brest, Bordeaux and St-Etienne, but Saliba showed his class with some fine performances at the back.
While he shines in France, Arsenal is struggling at the back with Arteta still looking for his best defensive combination.
Saliba will look to continue his fine form and hopefully catch the eye of Arteta back home at the Emirates.
Wouldnt blame the lad if he doesnt want to play under Arteta.
The way Arteta is going, Saliba will have a new manager when he returns next season
It wouldn’t surprise me if he is a superstar at another club. He seems pretty peed off with his treatment.
Shame he wasn’t given a chance. Still a mystery to me after all the efforts made to sign him. Seems a lot of strange managerial decisions occuring at the club.
would have been kind of nice to actually see how he could play in an Arsenal shirt. We had half a year to try that out…why would he ever want to come back here after management’s treatment?
The grudge holder Arteta is the worst man-manager in Arsenal history. To treat Saliba as he did is shameful. Brendan Rogers of Leicester bought Saliba’s parter Fofana and treated him with respect. He now plays for Rogers in the first team. Arteta is an amateur, an apprentice and sent Daliba away…what a numpty.
Hopefully we get a better coach next year! It beggars belief that the lad was not treated with any respect by the novice coach who bigged himself disproportionately on the basis of a cup win.
Arteta was a mediocre player (at best) during the Wenger years. He is an incompetent autocratic dictatorial manager. Lets all hope he gets the chop soon.
Arteta might not be in charge for Matteo & William to return to add to the talented youngsters we have and get rid of all the older guys while we may get some money for them.
He should be replacing Luiz by end of the season. with,Musti, Sokratis and Luiz gone, it shouldnt be hard for him to get game time, except something else is involved
When I read some of the comments here, I just feel like some of u do think through ur anus. Saliba was completely out of shape when he arrived at Arsenal this season, owing to the fact that the French league ended prematurely bcs of covid 19, he didn’t play any competitive game for over 6months, after about 2 training sections, Arteta called him and told him that he wasn’t ready, which Saliba himself acknowledged bcs he has not been training in that 6months, Arsenal also had several senior center backs, experienced center backs ahead of him. If u talk about his former team mate Wesley fofona, fofona trained and played in the French league cup final against PSG before Leicester signed him, so he was in a much better shape. You guys should go and read about Saliba’s interview where he opened up on his discussion with Arteta before he was ommitted from the league and Europa squad. And for u all information, Arteta will be in charge of the gunners at least till next season and Saliba will be back at Arsenal for preseason next season
Wasn’t Gabriels situation similar with not playing for month but he was put straight in and did well?
“I just feel like some of u do think through ur anus”; it’s quite unfortunate that some are so disrespectful and doesn’t see anything good in any contrary opinion, Gabriel came from the French ligue1 and didn’t play any competitive match until he joined us, Fofana only played the cup final which is not enough to regain match fitness, not being registered for even Europa league (he need a year to be ready) is demoralizing and would have impacted him negatively if he hadn’t act swiftly by demand a loan move.
observing the evolving pecking order in Arsenal, after this season, Martinelli may well be playing for Liverpool or Real Madrid, and Saliba for Barcelona.
Every coach has his own people chemistry with different players. Despite what he said publicly for PR or resale value purposes, Arteta doesn’t rate these two youngsters. It will be a win-win situation for them to leave for team harmony and their own future.
Whether it is good for Arsenal, everyone will have their own opinion
Yes, Gabriel have played at senior level for many years more than Saliba and has already returned for preseason with Lille for months, infact the French league have already started before arsenal bought him, so they are two different cases. Saliba has a future at Arsenal, and Arteta has practically nothing against him. Arteta was employed to coach the first team and that involves making decisions that concerns the first team. Before Saliba’s arrival, Arsenal had more than 6senior center backs, no coach will leave them to play a young and inexperienced center back, who is just coming from a different league with a language barrier except in an injury crisis. Forfona got his chance early bcs of an injury to that former Man United player. Personally, I rate Saliba high and I want him in Arsenal but coming here to slate Arteta is what am not in support of. Yes, Saliba may complain that he wasn’t given a chance but no coach would want to experiment on that bcs virtually every error a center back makes results in a goal. Watch that same Saliba in a preseason game against Aston Villa and in the EFL trophy with the under 23 and tell me ur opinion based on those matches
Good one bro: infact I don’t think Saliba would come out and say ” yes I wasn’t ready, and I should be omitted or benched” players always want to play, even with a broken neck a player would still say he’s disappointed by not playing
I don’t think Arteta is a bad manager at all. But, his treatment of Saliba and Guendouzi is shocking.
Now i was very surprised WS was completely left out of any squad this season, considering what the club went through to sign the young man and what the state of the squad was like at the beginning of the season regarding injuries to Mari, CC, Mustafi and the form of Luiz and Holding at the time, it baffled me.
Now none of us know what WS is like on the training pitch, we dont know his attitude or what state he was in physically, so on that front its just what we think and nothing factual.
Now we all know what a talent he is and the potential he has so why dont we see how he performs for Nice for the rest of the season and see how and if he fits in next season with us.
Some players need a big disappointment in their careers to get going, prime example of this is Harry Kane and Gareth Bale and look at what both of those have gone on to achieve in their careers, especially Bale.
Lets just see how he reacts and gets on, there is no point in talking about it now but more so in 5-6 months time