William Saliba could leave Arsenal on loan in the January transfer window. Manager Mikel Arteta has admitted he is ‘fed up’ with the situation surrounding the 19-year-old defender.
William Saliba Loan Move Likely to Appease Both Player and Club
Defender is Yet to Play a Single Minute of Senior Football For Arsenal
Saliba made the move to Arsenal from Ligue 1 side Saint-Etienne in 2019 for a fee of £27 million. He then spent the 2019/20 season on loan at the French side as part of the deal.
He joined Arsenal’s squad properly at the start of this season. Many expected him to form part of a new-look defence, along with fellow new signing Gabriel Magalhaes.
That has been far from the case. Saliba is yet to feature in an Arsenal shirt – and wasn’t even registered in the club’s Europa League squad.
Speaking ahead of Arsenal’s Europa League match against Molde, Arteta told reporters he has lost patience with the circumstances regarding Saliba’s lack of game time: “I am fed up with the situation, because as you could see we tried to find a way in the last few days [of the transfer window] to give him some football.
“I explained that he needed that transition year when we decided to buy him and send him on loan to Saint-Etienne, for many reasons that didn’t happen, he didn’t have that transition year and he needs to go through that.
“At the moment, with the amount of central defenders that we have in the team we had to leave him out of the squad which is painful because we have some injuries and we could have used him, but it’s part of this profession.”
Arteta was asked whether or not Saliba could move on loan in the upcoming transfer window. The Spaniard replied:
“Yes. We certainly tried in the last few days of the transfer window to find the right club and we had it, but at the end of the day we could not make it.
“We will review his situation in the next few weeks, sit down with him as well and see what is the best thing to do. But it will depend on him and other players’ situations as well.”
Saliba’s prospects of game time are slim at the moment. He is currently behind David Luiz, Gabriel, Rob Holding and Shkodran Mustafi in Arteta’s plans for his defence.
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