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….
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?