William Saliba: Page 14 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

William Saliba

speedy

It might just be he's making basic errors in training that arteta thinks will cost us a few games over the course of the season, that's 9 points. Thats the potential for a CL finish or not. That's arteta out of the job potentially.

Qwiss

speedy wrote:
It might just be he's making basic errors in training that arteta thinks will cost us a few games over the course of the season, that's 9 points. Thats the potential for a CL finish or not. That's arteta out of the job potentially.

That'd be fair enough but what about the cups?

lorddulaarsenal

I recon Arteta is put off by his ability on the ball. He’s very deliberate and could do things swifter

speedy

Qwiss! wrote:
speedy wrote:
It might just be he's making basic errors in training that arteta thinks will cost us a few games over the course of the season, that's 9 points. Thats the potential for a CL finish or not. That's arteta out of the job potentially.

That'd be fair enough but what about the cups?

Not sure, weren't we about to send him on loan and we left him out of the EL squad for that reason? Carabo cup was leister and liverpool so it'd be mean to throw him in their.

QuincyAbeyie

speedy wrote:
It might just be he's making basic errors in training that arteta thinks will cost us a few games over the course of the season, that's 9 points. Thats the potential for a CL finish or not. That's arteta out of the job potentially.

I see your point, but the maths is off. He would only cost us 9 points if he played instead of Mustafi and maked mistakes worth 9 points that Mustafi wouldn't do, while at the same time not saving any points that Mustafi would've cost us.

Clrnc

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Clrnc wrote:
I think this would be a bigger mystery than Park, because all the facts don't add up. One of the best young defenders in France, legit performed well in Ligue 1 for probably about 1 season worth of appearances comes here and don't get into ANY matchday squad, solely plays for u23. His competition is a disgrace in terms of quality (Sokratis, Mustafi etc)

His understudy, less experienced gets signed by Leicester and is one of the best defenders in the league instantly albeit small sample size.

The logic naturally says Arteta got it wrong but, why?

That's what is weird to me. I can't accept that there's nothing more going on than him playing that well in Ligue 1 and then not even being good enough to get one minute in our team.

Yeah. Someone so coveted, fought tooth and nail with Spurs and United for, and then subsequently St Etienne was desperate to get him back for a final is not even good enough to make carabao cup benches.

Like I said in the first match at Fulham, the writing is on the wall for him when Gabriel who barely completed 1 training session with us after quarantined got thrown into the team and he isn't even on the bench. Just how bad can he look in training?

Sicario

Relax. He is only 19. Will get plenty of games when the moment is right.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Bizarre and knowing this club we'll never get the fucking answer.

Shady

Chill out.

Claudius

Kel Varnsen wrote:
This and the Pepe signing have the potential to become some of the worst signings ever at Arsenal.

It’s still very early days on this kid. He’s 19. We just need to get his career on track.
The key with this stuff is to forget the transfer fee once it’s happened. And look forward. Looking forward what do you have? You have a highly rated 19 year old with Ligue 1 experience. Get him games and take it from there. It’s a different starting point from Pépé who is a 25 year old who is struggling to get consistency within and across games with issues around fundamentals that aren’t being overcome by his flashes of brilliance. That to me sounds like a potential12th man, not a key piece of the starting lineup.

Big Willie

It's a funny world we live in when Sicario is the voice of reason in this thread.

QuincyAbeyie

I'm not sure why you choose to isolate his age and only consider that he's young and nothing else. It's not about his age, it's that we took him a huge step backwards, from being a starter in a Ligue 1 club we refused to let them have him any longer and let him to play U23 football. Now we're trying to send him back again. I'm not sure why it's difficult to see that this is handled all wrong, that he's young doesn't change that.

Big Willie

This hasn't been handled well but he has age on his side and past performances to back up the idea that he'll come good eventually (assuming the reason for his exclusion is performance in training related). That he's young means that time is on his side to turn things around.

goon

It's definitely been handled poorly.

I think it's pretty clear that there's a mental issue there. After the comments below I wondered if maybe he's homesick?

“He is in a much better place, he’s feeling more confident around the place,” he said.

“His language is improving, he’s starting to understand much better what we’re doing to do physically.

Either way, regardless of quality, Arteta isn't going to pick someone who's head isn't 100% on it. But even if that's the case, engineering this mess of a situation can't be the best way to cultivate the right mentality.

Anzac

goon wrote:
It's definitely been handled poorly.

I think it's pretty clear that there's a mental issue there. After the comments below I wondered if maybe he's homesick?

“He is in a much better place, he’s feeling more confident around the place,” he said.

“His language is improving, he’s starting to understand much better what we’re doing to do physically.

Either way, regardless of quality, Arteta isn't going to pick someone who's head isn't 100% on it. But even if that's the case, engineering this mess of a situation can't be the best way to cultivate the right mentality.

I think his mother's passing may have been a huge factor in regard to feeling homesick and wanting to return to play in France where he perhaps feels in a more comfortable & familiar environment. However I also understand from our perspective that doing so for another season on loan will not meet the intended development and familiarisation with the English game, along with the fact that his injuries last season prevented him from getting substantive playing time.

I think COVID impacted our game plan as we were unable to sell/loan the likes of Sokratis, Mustafi etc to make room within the senior squad (as seen with Sokratis and Ozil both missing selection). PlanB was to get him a loan in The Championship to kill 2 birds with 1 stone but with a club that has a similar approach to playing out from the back. When that didn't happen there was a mad scramble to get him a loan back to France that didn't come off. I also think that our HG number requirements may have prevented him from being named in either squad, with the end result being the mess we find ourselves in.

I just hope that this, along with the previous issue re the French Cup Final, does not put him off the club to the point he already wants a transfer out as opposed to going on loan.

Ray

Arteta's overthinking this one. He just needs to play him, and give him a consistent challenge. I don't buy Mustafi being a better option.

Anzac

Ray wrote:
Arteta's overthinking this one. He just needs to play him, and give him a consistent challenge. I don't buy Mustafi being a better option.

Perhaps, although Mustafi is another player who had improved under Arteta and at one point had been his 1st choice CB until injured.

EDIT - My hope is that we are able to move some players on in Jan so we can then bring Saliba into the squad/s, which may mitigate his lack of senior games for this current part of the season. It's still not an ideal scenario but possibly the best we can do under current circumstances.

Gazza M

this whole thing just seems bungled. i flat out refuse to believe he's a dud, especially after watching what fofana is doing at leicester. we'd better sort it out in january

Claudius

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
I'm not sure why you choose to isolate his age and only consider that he's young and nothing else. It's not about his age, it's that we took him a huge step backwards, from being a starter in a Ligue 1 club we refused to let them have him any longer and let him to play U23 football. Now we're trying to send him back again. I'm not sure why it's difficult to see that this is handled all wrong, that he's young doesn't change that.

I think we’ve fucked up everything since denying him that cup final appearance. That was a small-minded move. But I don’t want to to dwell on the past. We need to look forward. We are 7 weeks from the transfer window opening. There’s only one Carabao Cup game before then. We need to start making the plan for January now so he’s out on the first day to a good team that needs him and will play him, even if that is St Etienne. In terms of looking forward, he’s a 19 year old central defender with potential. He’s probably years from his peak, but he won’t magically get there without playing. The best thing we can do for ourselves is send him somewhere he will definitely play.

I have the same attitude with Nelson. Now that we’ve taken on Willian, we need to just get miles on Nelson. Why isn’t Nelson getting Walcott’s minutes at Southampton, for example? That would’ve been a great transfer.

RC8

For all we know the guy is going through very serious depression and can't be counted on in the short term.

It's all speculation at this stage. I am not worried about his long-term future yet.

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