Reports claim that Saliba’s loan deal could extend by 12 months

Arsenal’s William Saliba has just returned to Ligue 1 to join up with Nice on loan until the end of the season, but reports are claiming that could be extended until the summer of 2022.

The 19 year-old agreed a deal to sign for the Gunners in the summer of 2019, which included spending the initial campaign on loan with former side St Etienne.

Saliba was later hampered by an injury, before French football was cut-short following the Coronavirus pandemic, and he ended up picking up just 12 Ligue 1 appearances in that campaign.

There had been huge expectations on his arrival in North London, with calls for him to play a huge role in our first-team, but the reality couldn’t have been any further from that. The youngster failed to convince manager Mikel Arteta to name him for his Europa League or Premier League squads for the current season, and he has now left on loan without making a single senior squad this term.

Saliba completed a medical to join Nice on loan until the end of the season yesterday, but reports by L’Equipe (via InsideFutbol)claim that that deal could be extended by a further 12 months.

Do Arsenal fans need to lower their expectations on the youngster?

Patrick

Tags Nice William Saliba

5 Comments

  1. Arteta made a mistake, I would have picked him in Europa anyday before Mustafi who was still recovering from injury, came back out of his inconsistent form, leaving the club by the end of the season and have less physical quality compared to Willliam.

    Decision making in Arsenal has been and is a joke. If that is true, then we signed the player for 5 years with almost 30M euros to unuse him for 3.

  2. How do we recoup the 27m transfer fee? Assuming he does well at Nice , will he play for us next season?If he does not impress in Nice do we add him to our growing list of bad buys?Recruitment wise, we have become a complete joke and we will pay very heavily for our incompetence in this area. Why are we unable to at least identify quality centre backs.When I compare our recruitment record with that of Leicester City I am embarrassed and annoyed.Do our Board members not share my frustrations? If they do what are they doing about it? Sorry to rant on, but Saliba is the icing on the cake for me particularly when I watch his friend and former teammate, Foffana playing so well for Leicester.

    1. Change have become to became. Full past tense and I agree granddad…..grin. Those bozos are gone. I am an insufferable optimist.

  3. If I was writing this yesterday it would have been a name calling post. But today I saw a video about Martin Odeggard and after seeing that I have returned to a calm state. Maybe everything is not lost yet.

    P.S I still think Arsenal, Edu and Arteta did not deal with the situation properly.

    1. Hopefully it is not lost.

      It isna regretable situation. If we had world class centerbacks I wouldn’t mind at all. But the team lacks quality right footed defenders….between those with one foot out and those recovering from injuries it is unthinkable that he didn’t get a chance even for Europa….our group was not mkre challenging that the U23 games he played. Arteta missed an opportunity to get him on track with his team mates and style of play..

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