William Saliba: Page 28 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

William Saliba

Claudius

There are two phases to the goal. Phase 1, the defenders miscommunicate, and the center backs push forward, leaving others in the wall back. Phase two, Saliba is stuck up while Boye scores. This is what I was referring to when I said over the two games, their defense has shown multiple instances of poor communication. The second goal by Brest was another such instance.

You could be right about the man of the match. There does seem to be some nationalistic ire towards Arsenal

KingslandBarge

haha, and he executes the (fair) check right outside the box. Good dispossessor.

Jed

Quality performance. Once he settles into that defence, he’ll come into his own.

Clrnc

Claudius wrote:
You could be right about the man of the match. There does seem to be some nationalistic ire towards Arsenal

That's another strong conspiracy theory 😆

Claudius

Maybe it’s just Saliba fans. But between GFFN and individuals on twitter there is a lot of negative sentiment towards Arsenal from what appear to be non Arsenal fans.

Clrnc

Yeah that's because we follow mostly Arsenal news and also take notice of that.

Not everything revolves around us 😉

Claudius

🙂

QuincyAbeyie

Also, I reckon Arsenal fans are as "anti-Arsenal" in the Saliba matter as French news outlets.

FEBravo

Reality is from his perspective, he was mistreated, and I think objectively that's the case. In the end, he could not play anymore for half a season. Whether that was incompetence, mismanagement or something more unseemingly doesn't make it better from his end. So easy to beat Arsenal with that stick on this one.

Claudius

Absolutely. To be specific, the types of comments I was referring to were folks saying he should stay in France, etc.
Arsenal clearly messed up on the loan, but a normal Arsenal fan would probably wish to see him perform well and return

Klaus

FEBravo wrote:
Reality is from his perspective, he was mistreated, and I think objectively that's the case. In the end, he could not play anymore for half a season. Whether that was incompetence, mismanagement or something more unseemingly doesn't make it better from his end. So easy to beat Arsenal with that stick on this one.

Yeah, I think if you look at it from Saliba's perspective he had a difficult season with a bad injury last year, he worked his way back, and then the French league got abandoned and he had to sit at home for three months without seeing his teammates. And then we blocked him from playing the biggest game of his life and brought him back to London immediately. It might or might not have been because St Etienne were being unreasonable, but we stopped him from playing that cup final and it had to sting; Saliba said he felt like he left the club like a robber. Then we brought him back here and let him sit and watch while his new teammates won a cup final instead. Nothing that could have been done by that, but I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on him. Then we proceeded to dump him from the squad in every competition, and we also didn't secure a loan for him somewhere else so he had to play with our youth team. And on top of everything he gets to see the second-rated St Etienne centreback debut for and excel at Leicester. Adding everything together it must feel like signing that contract with us fucked up both his life and his career.

He seems like a good lad and hasn't made any derogatory comments; I noticed he carefully avoided saying anything when the journalists were fishing after his debut for Nice, but I'm certain he's not fond of Arsenal at the moment, and somewhere along the lines we probably only have ourselves to blame. It's not a great way to treat young players, or any players really, but doubly so teenagers who haven't got the experience either in life or on the pitch to deal with it.

You also wonder how this could affect future contract talks and transfer dealings with him. Even if he becomes a success, how much would something like this affect his willingness to stay with us a couple years down the road? The club didn't come through for him, so why should he feel any loyalty to it if someone else comes knocking?

goon

Well the good news is he signed a 6 year deal with us so we have plenty of time to change his mindset. Generally players are not really any different to fans, when things are good they'll quickly forget the bad times. Right now he's got absolutely nothing positive to associate with Arsenal.

Claudius

If I were him, I would actually want out. There would need to be really extenuating circumstances like St Etienne offered to delay our transfer commitments and reneged. Otherwise, you've wasted 18 months of your life. He could've gone to a place like a Dortmund / Leipzig where they take care of their young.

goon

Not sure where you got 18 months from, if I remember correctly he himself wanted to stay at St Etienne for the first season and it was pretty much a condition of his signing.

Also I've noticed a trend with Arsenal fans that, when putting themselves in a players shoes, they would always opt to leave/not join us 😆

Big Willie

Yeah. It's only the first half of this season and the Cup final were at fault for. We can't be blamed for his injury last season or Covid.

Claudius

goon wrote:
Not sure where you got 18 months from, if I remember correctly he himself wanted to stay at St Etienne for the first season and it was pretty much a condition of his signing.

Also I've noticed a trend with Arsenal fans that, when putting themselves in a players shoes, they would always opt to leave/not join us 😆

Didn't realise that it was his condition. I thought it was St Etienne's condition. We actually tried to recall him in his first year, I recall when, once again, we had a defensive crisis. Filling your defense with useless, oft-injured defenders will give you those. Hopefully, next year with Saliba, Holding, Mari and Gabriel, there is some stability.

Claudius

goon wrote:
Also I've noticed a trend with Arsenal fans that, when putting themselves in a players shoes, they would always opt to leave/not join us 😆

The last 15 years have been instructive. More often than we would've liked, the desirable players have chosen to leave us for City, United, Barcelona etc. And undesirable players have managed to secure extensions with us. Reflect on it a minute and ask yourself what is happening

Clrnc

Klaus wrote:
FEBravo wrote:
Reality is from his perspective, he was mistreated, and I think objectively that's the case. In the end, he could not play anymore for half a season. Whether that was incompetence, mismanagement or something more unseemingly doesn't make it better from his end. So easy to beat Arsenal with that stick on this one.

Yeah, I think if you look at it from Saliba's perspective he had a difficult season with a bad injury last year, he worked his way back, and then the French league got abandoned and he had to sit at home for three months without seeing his teammates. And then we blocked him from playing the biggest game of his life and brought him back to London immediately. It might or might not have been because St Etienne were being unreasonable, but we stopped him from playing that cup final and it had to sting; Saliba said he felt like he left the club like a robber. Then we brought him back here and let him sit and watch while his new teammates won a cup final instead. Nothing that could have been done by that, but I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on him. Then we proceeded to dump him from the squad in every competition, and we also didn't secure a loan for him somewhere else so he had to play with our youth team. And on top of everything he gets to see the second-rated St Etienne centreback debut for and excel at Leicester. Adding everything together it must feel like signing that contract with us fucked up both his life and his career.

He seems like a good lad and hasn't made any derogatory comments; I noticed he carefully avoided saying anything when the journalists were fishing after his debut for Nice, but I'm certain he's not fond of Arsenal at the moment, and somewhere along the lines we probably only have ourselves to blame. It's not a great way to treat young players, or any players really, but doubly so teenagers who haven't got the experience either in life or on the pitch to deal with it.

You also wonder how this could affect future contract talks and transfer dealings with him. Even if he becomes a success, how much would something like this affect his willingness to stay with us a couple years down the road? The club didn't come through for him, so why should he feel any loyalty to it if someone else comes knocking?

Yup, totally agree with this. He did make some snide remarks on social media on various players post here and there, but he really seems like a good and mature lad. One of the key points about him when we were signing him is that this guy has immense mental strength and captain material from a very young age, which is also why I never bought those made up ridiculous conspiracy theories like how he couldn't play because was in new country, personal problems, we are trying to protect him from crowd abuse etc. His reaction on social media and interviews is the biggest indicator those theories are absolute nonsense. Lets hope he can bounce back from how we mistreated him and forget everything when he comes back.

goon wrote:
Also I've noticed a trend with Arsenal fans that, when putting themselves in a players shoes, they would always opt to leave/not join us 😆

😆 Get out while you can Joel

goon

ffs 😆

Claudius wrote:
goon wrote:
Also I've noticed a trend with Arsenal fans that, when putting themselves in a players shoes, they would always opt to leave/not join us 😆

The last 15 years have been instructive. More often than we would've liked, the desirable players have chosen to leave us for City, United, Barcelona etc. And undesirable players have managed to secure extensions with us. Reflect on it a minute and ask yourself what is happening

Yeah sure but that's just the normal life of a club that's not winning. See Dortmund.

Arsenal fans take it to another level. Most were convinced Saka was leaving for example, why would he stay? They project their own feelings onto the players. Most of them are happy as long as they are playing, playing at the right level, getting a good living and in a good City.

Claudius

goon wrote:
ffs 😆

Claudius wrote:
The last 15 years have been instructive. More often than we would've liked, the desirable players have chosen to leave us for City, United, Barcelona etc. And undesirable players have managed to secure extensions with us. Reflect on it a minute and ask yourself what is happening

Yeah sure but that's just the normal life of a club that's not winning. See Dortmund.

Arsenal fans take it to another level. Most were convinced Saka was leaving for example, why would he stay? They project their own feelings onto the players.

we've lost so many players because we have consistently failed to build a winning team. it's this decade of distress that we need to rapidly reverse. that's why this summer is so monumental. it will be the first unconstrained summer for Edu and Arteta, and they have a chance to impose their vision and culture on this club. I'm actually quite happy with the skeleton we have. if we get rid of the grifters and bring in 2 quality players, we will put ourselves in a fantastic position to progress the project. this is what Wenger never did.

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