The William Saliba saga has cast a cloud over Arsenal beginning to this season, and there were questions asked when the young centre-back was not even included in the Europa League Group Stages, where he could have gained some experience against Weaker sides before integrating into the first team squad,
But he was not given any chance at all by Arteta, and he was eventually loaned out to Nice this week. He was obviously asked about Mikel Arteta’s remarks after his departure, and Saliba was quoted as saying….
William Saliba asked by journalist if he has seen the quotes from Mikel Arteta that say that he has been loaned for his own protection:
"(smiles) No I have not seen that. Aside from that, I have no intention of responding to what's been said. I left because I needed to play."
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) January 8, 2021
William Saliba cont: "I have not played for 6 months, not since March."
Journalist: "You missed the Coupe de France."
Saliba: "(smirks) That too. 2020 was a hard year for me."
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) January 8, 2021
Saliba was immediately put straight into Nice’s first team to play Brest on arrival, and although he had said he wouldn’t respond to Arteta, he then told the Daily Mail: “The coach immediately told me that I was not ready,
“I would have at least liked to have had a chance to rediscover my rhythm.
“My first six months were difficult, because I was coming from six months where I wasn’t able to train because I was at home and couldn’t train outside, couldn’t play.”
‘I arrived there as they were finishing the league season, so I was training alone. As soon as they came back from holidays, we quickly had the first friendly matches where I lacked rhythm and was a bit insufficient physically.’
‘What’s for sure is that I was coming from Arsenal U23s, and what is for sure is that the rhythm at professional level and U23 level is not the same.
‘I wanted to play and I trained so hard at Arsenal, that’s why the coach put me in directly on Wednesday. But certainly I had not played for a while and that has done me good.
‘Even though I’m young, I’ve come to be a leader.’
To be fair to Arteta, he started the season with around 8 centre-backs available, so he was always going to have to leave a few out. But also, it was very unfair to not even give Saliba a chance to get fit again before writing him off.
All this would have been a lot easier if Arsenal had found a loan for Saliba in the summer, rather than wait until now, wouldn’t it?
The truth is he was treated like a leper and not given any chance at all. It is and will always be a strange one too explain.
Arteta has poor player management
Saliba’s partner at St. Etienne was Wesley Fofana. Brendan Rogers, in a completely different mindset to Arteta, immediately has put Fofana into the Leicester team. Arteta has made a massive kerfuffle over young William Saliba and , IMHO, treated him very poorly. Mind you Brendan Rogers has a great track record and has good man management, his players want to play for him. As a club we now seem to accept the loss of the dressing room by Arteta, and some unethical player treatment. ‘What goes around comes around’. Whatever happened to my love…..Arsenal?
My first six months were difficult, because I was coming from six months where I wasn’t able to train because I was at home and couldn’t train outside, couldn’t play.”
‘I arrived there as they were finishing the league season, so I was training alone. As soon as they came back from holidays, we quickly had the first friendly matches where I lacked rhythm and was a bit insufficient physically.’
Yet you still have people calling Arteta names and questioning his motives, even after hearing it from the horse’s mouth himself.
Sure Arteta could’ve given him the chance in the cup games, but you’re trying to tell me a couple of cup games would be better than having him go out on loan and go play league games?
Saliba’s loan deal fell in the last minute because the transfer deadline but nah, Arteta has poor man management skills and has an agenda against Saliba
Eddie if that’s all you could see in that saliba post then I’m sorry to say bro but you are a bit biased. From what Saliba said we can all see he really wants to play but the coach said he’s not ready? The same coach who keep playing Willian, wilock, Nketiah and even Holding when he was playing badly but he thinks Saliba is not ready 🤔🤔🤔
But you read it, he said so himself that he wasn’t no where in the condition since he didn’t play for 6 months.
It’s not like I made it up.
The likes of Willock you keep calling, all were playing even during the Covid period, all already were in good shape physically, and you sounding as though Willock was starting games.
You’re trying to compare William, Holding and Co who were in a bad form with the kid who himself said he wasn’t ready physically, all just to push an agenda.
Bruv I think you’re the one being biased here
I frankly don’t get it either Eddie.
As I mentioned in an earlier post and now confirmed
by WS himself the young lad was nowhere near the
required condition, both physically and mentally to
feature prominently for the first team this season.
Perhaps MA could of registered the Frenchmen for
both the EL and Cup competitions but honestly how
many actual games would he have featured in if
Arsenal successfully made it deep in both tourneys?
Yes he may of played and impressed against the
likes of Molde and Dundalk in the group stages but
do AFC fans really believe MA would trot out the
young man with European football on the line?
WS is still only 20 years old and needs to play as
many games as humanely possible while out on
loan @ Nice. A successful, injury free stay on the
French Riviera may be the perfect tonic for the
young lad and expedite his return to the Arsenal
first team set up this summer.
ACE brilliant post so WS is not ready but the likes of Nketiah Wilcok are ready, the bitter truth is that Arteta does not rate him. Wait till the like of real madrid or Bayern or psg sign him up.
Lenohappy one thing you’re ignoring in your comparisons with the likes of Willock is that Saliba, as stated,was in competition with seven or so other guys for two positions while the other two had (have) only one or two other guys ahead of them.Besides Saliba was not at the required physical condition as admitted even by him.
You can refrain from the poor attempt & sarcasm and
just provide your opinion.
And if MA doesn’t rate him atm why the Arsenal sky is
falling narrative based on a 20 year old kid? Man City
a few years back spent twice the amount of cash on
a young John Stones and he is FINALLY starting to
rediscover his once prodigious form. Arsenal fans act
as if this is the last stop on the WS career train, eager
to excoriate the club and manager for making a difficult
yet necessary decision imho on what’s best for the
young mans immediate future. WS will have his chance
to refind his form and stay injury free for the balance of
the Ligue 1 season. If he thrives in the French Riveria
the young Frenchmen will be welcomed back with open
arms and given a genuine opportunity to be in the mix
with Gab, Holding, Mari, Dino, and possibly CC for next
season.
And if RM, PSG and the like come sniffing around, slap
a $75M price tag on the young Frenchmen and see
how the big boys react
Brilliant comment Ace.
No need to add or take out from your comment.
At this point if people still think the coach doesn’t rate him there’s nothing I can do
William Saliba Quote.
“The coach immediately told me that I was not ready. I would have at least liked to have had a chance to rediscover my rhythm”.
WS was not written off as “not ready” from early on and not given a chance after that.
He was left out of Europa squad and not given a chance to play because of early impression and not make believe personal problems.
Anyone who thinks he wasn’t treated appallingly is not seeing reality. There is no excuses why he wasn’t signed and played this season in even minor games. It takes about 4 weeks to get fit, not 18 months.
Finally something from the horse’s mouth.
Those people who keep saying he is not ready because he has personal problems, he is vulnerable and need to go home, better go see the full transcript on Get French Football News.
If going home to recover from make believe personal problems is what WS wanted, he would not have said this: “As for St Étienne, that is my home, and my comfort zone. I wanted to leave my comfort zone to come to Nice, a club I have never played for. I am sure it is the best choice”.
He left Arsenal and prefer Nice over St Étienne, not for make believe personal problems some people say.
Spot on!as soon as Edu said the decision to go to Nice was both the club’s and Saliba’s decision I knew this was not true no way would he have chosen them over St-Etienne especially when they were desperate to have him back!
Cph you conveniently ignored the part where he stated he wasn’t at the right physical condition having not played for a while
Onyango I did not conveniently ignored the part because what I wrote was for those people who chose to make believe he was not ready because of personal problems of his parents passing, moving to a new country and so on.
I do not have a problem with people saying WS was ready because he was not in the right physical condition after not training and playing for months in France due to lockdown and season terminated. You understand?
Are you those people who still choose to believe WS is vulnerable and has personal emotional problems?
Cph I get your point
There you go again jumping on the bandwagon and misinterpreted statements
Saliba agreed with Arteta he was 6 months behind. So even if he was in the squad he wouldn’t be up to pace
So it was not personal emotional problem and feeling vulnerable was it? It was because he did not train and play for months and was behind right?
Now where are those who keep saying it was because he had personal problems?
it keeps changing. There’s no excuse for why Saliba couldnt get games for Europa League tho. He was not ready to face a league team from ireland? I dont believe that.
The French league was at least on par if not better than our Europa group opponents.
I don’t see how he could walk straight into a Nice team a day or two after his loan move and not be ready to face a league team from Ireland.
If any of you slagging off MA had read the full interview you would realise that the headline of this article is utter BS, as usual, and the whole article is slanted against MA. A decent half season with Nice and he will be back with us for pre season training and in contention for next season. St Etienne couldn’t guarantee him games but Nice could, hence where he now is playing.