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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

Chill out.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Big Willie wrote:

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.

I'm not worried for the long-term either, I'm just annoyed that we're seemingly making the road there as hard as possible.

It's likely Sok, Chambers, Luiz will be gone next year in which case saliba will get lots of games.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Big Willie wrote:

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.

I'm not worried for the long-term either, I'm just annoyed that we're seemingly making the road there as hard as possible.

You get the sense we wouldn't have seen gabriel for months had luiz, mustafi and mari not had fitness problems as well. When you sink 20m+ into  defender its in your best interest to get them up to speed as quickly as possible

Gazza M wrote:

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

I'm not worried for the long-term either, I'm just annoyed that we're seemingly making the road there as hard as possible.

You get the sense we wouldn't have seen gabriel for months had luiz, mustafi and mari not had fitness problems as well. When you sink 20m+ into  defender its in your best interest to get them up to speed as quickly as possible

If that's the case then Arteta needs to be blamed, because in training its very easy to see their respective levels.

It's kind of annoying that by the time Saliba comes good his contract will probably need to be renewed, the road there is such a waste of time when it shouldnt have been the case. He should never be behind Mustafi in the pecking order unless he is League 1 level.

Reading through Arteta's comments about him, pretty sure its physicality he is worried about.

Claudius wrote:

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.

Yes, it's early, but the fact that he's not playing is very unusual. That and Arteta's comments are clear signs that something is not right. Everything might work out in the end, but so far this transfer has been a complete waste of money. 

i guess the only good thing is that they're paying like 5m a year for him.

Meatwad wrote:

i guess the only good thing is that they're paying like 5m a year for him.

Which is another reason they can take time with him and not rush to integrate him based of his fee.

There were rumors a while back Saliba's mother had passed, but now it appears he lost both parents.

Bloody hell. All the best to the bloke. Wonder what we can do to show him support. Must be an awful time.

We showed him support by not throwing him in the deep end and seeing him possibly get exposed to our toxic fanbase. Then we shat on club for it.

Fair. It's hard to know what's happening, and the club / player really aren't obligated to tell us everything as much as the new social media era makes fans think they're entitled to know everything

Very tragic. Hope he's given enough time off to go back to France whenever he needs to, particularly now that he doesn't have any first team commitments

Just awful and condolences to the lad. Saliba may be in a shook reality so I hope the club makes every effort to nurture him in this time. I'm not sure a loan(or any football) is the answer but certainly a leave of absence.

Nice to see a bit more perspective in the posts above. At the end of the day, Saliba is a 19 year old kid. Hope he's got good supports around him and that the club are part of that.

Hope the senior players can show him loadsa support too. You can say all the shit about em but they look a happy loving bunch.

Daz wrote:

Nice to see a bit more perspective in the posts above. At the end of the day, Saliba is a 19 year old kid. Hope he's got good supports around him and that the club are part of that.

As long as you don’t go too far above. You don’t even have to go back a page to see him being branded as possibly the worst signing we’ve ever made.

Then again, it was only five or six posts ago we thought he had only lost one parent, maybe now we know he had lost the other, albeit a few years ago, the kid might be afforded a bit of time before we start counting how much we’re throwing away on his salary.

Mirth wrote:

Very tragic. Hope he's given enough time off to go back to France whenever he needs to, particularly now that he doesn't have any first team commitments

It's abit misleading but it was 2018.

Bosscielny wrote:

Daz wrote:

Nice to see a bit more perspective in the posts above. At the end of the day, Saliba is a 19 year old kid. Hope he's got good supports around him and that the club are part of that.

As long as you don’t go too far above. You don’t even have to go back a page to see him being branded as possibly the worst signing we’ve ever made.

Then again, it was only five or six posts ago we thought he had only lost one parent, maybe now we know he had lost the other, albeit a few years ago, the kid might be afforded a bit of time before we start counting how much we’re throwing away on his salary.

Amen! Or how incompetent the entire Arsenal coaching and scouting planet is.

Such a harsh fate for one who otherwise seems to have it made in life. You've got to count your blessings in this world.

Arteta confirms it’s both personal and professional issues that have been the issue, but sounds much more positive. Unless he’s suddenly going to leap frog Holding, Luiz and Chambers I think we’re better off loaning him for six months, preferably to a PL or Championship side.