Ray wrote:
RocktheCasbah wrote:
Exactly right.
I'm sure he'll be afforded the usual latitude from everyone when he makes his first mistake in an Arsenal shirt.
Seems like you can’t wait for him to make a mistake. Positivity is only saved for Arteta.
Again, putting words in my mouth.
My point is really very simple, Saliba is 21 years old and, as evidenced within this thread, there is already a lot of hype not about how good he could be, but about how good he is now.
And, more to the point, academic as it now is, whether he was good enough to play for Arsenal, a year - or as some of you think - two years ago. Personally, I believe throwing in a 19 year old centre back would have been wrong. We'll never know now, but the last 19 year old we had starting games in that position didn't turn out too well.
If Saliba comes into the first team this season and does well, we'll all be delighted but it concerns me that he is already regarded as some sort of defensive unicorn. I know how quickly Arsenal fans can turn on players not deemed to be up to it and there aren't many hiding places at centre back.
