Loan Watch 21/22: Page 8 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Loan Watch 21/22

Ray

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:
Anzac wrote:
Saw a report Saliba also came in for criticism for his part in conceding 2 goals & was voted onto the worst XI for the round.

Quick delete this. Doesn’t fit the narrative!

What narrative?

Jed

Won’t be bullied.

Ray

Can only imagine what a Saliba-Gabriel partnership would have looked like.

Looks like Guendouzi made the French national team.

Jed

Tomiyasu-Saliba-Gabriel-Tierney is potentially the best in the world.

goon

Poor. Ben White would have started a counter for the winner.

Clrnc

Ray wrote:
Can only imagine what a Saliba-Gabriel partnership would have looked like.

Looks like Guendouzi made the French national team.

Not our player anymore but well rewarded for an excellent start to his Marseille career. Sampaoli transformed him

jones

When things go well Sampaoli is a top 5 coach in the world. He's like a hot headed Favre on roids, when it's working its working well enough to win Chile their first ever title or to get a team like Sevilla competing for the title in one of the strongest leagues ever. When it's not working you get a disaster like Argentina in Russia.

Something to be said about a man who's yet to be sacked (I think). Whenever or wherever he's been and faced insurmountable difficulties he offered his resignation by himself, in some instances like his time in Brazil I don't even think the club wanted him to leave.

Ricky1985

Jed wrote:

Won’t be bullied.

He will be a big bad bastard when he's all grown up.

lorddulaarsenal

Read that Saliba has been working on speed. He looks visibly leaner too which is great. Arteta’s plans are working so so well. Love to see it

Ricky1985

It's always bothered me that he is a little flat-footed and struggles a bit on the turn. Hoping that it irons out as he develops more muscle to manouver that huge frame.

Clrnc

jones wrote:
When things go well Sampaoli is a top 5 coach in the world. He's like a hot headed Favre on roids, when it's working its working well enough to win Chile their first ever title or to get a team like Sevilla competing for the title in one of the strongest leagues ever. When it's not working you get a disaster like Argentina in Russia.

Something to be said about a man who's yet to be sacked (I think). Whenever or wherever he's been and faced insurmountable difficulties he offered his resignation by himself, in some instances like his time in Brazil I don't even think the club wanted him to leave.

Yup. Marseille is playing really well at the moment with his gungho football but conceding some goals for fun too.

Should also help Saliba development a lot given that he is always left with 1v1 defending when opponents attack, like how Koscielny use to sweep up under Wenger. Not that I believe he will ever play for us though.

Ray

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/saliba-van-dijk-arsenal-liverpool-25113330

Saliba likened to Van Dijk, but we don't need that when we have Rio Ferdinand playing for us at CB.

Ricky1985

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:
Read that Saliba has been working on speed. He looks visibly leaner too which is great. Arteta’s plans are working so so well. Love to see it

I went and read it for myself:

Arsenal centre-back William Saliba has the "potential to make it far" and warrants comparisons to Liverpool superstar Virgil van Dijk.

Those are the confident claims of Saliba's strength and conditioning coach, who also explained why Gunners fans are wrong to be "annoyed" by the defender's current predicament.
...
In recent years Saliba has worked to bulk-up with Dubai-based trainer Nicolas St-Maurice, who has played a key role improving his "speed" and "power" to make him even more imposing for opposition attackers.

"He’s a very nice guy, very hard working. We worked on a number of things such as speed, power, you know he’s a big guy also and he’s strong," St-Maurice told football.london of Saliba.

"When you’re so young and you’re big and strong you aren’t as quick as the smaller guys. We worked a bit on that and he did really well."
...
He added: "When I first saw him (Saliba) I thought of Van Dijk because of his positions of plays and he has the right potential to make it far."
...
Throughout all this, Saliba has continued to work on improving his physicality and St-Maurice has been impressed by his dedicated approach.

"I know a lot of young players I can see that some get distracted when they come to Dubai but he (Saliba) was working hard and he’s got the right environment," said St-Maurice.

"William is humble."

Simply put, Saliba has been excelling in France while on loan at Jorge Sampaoli's side. The Argentine manager himself has heaped praise on the youngster, claiming he is "lucky" to have him in his squad.

Saliba has featured in all seven of the club's Ligue 1 fixtures, conceding just six goals in that time

Given Arsenal's defensive frailties at times this season, questions have been raised regarding why Arteta and technical director Edu allowed Saliba to depart.

As the loan was confirmed, Edu was keen to stress Saliba is "still developing all the time", hinting more first-team minutes are required before he can enter the fray in the Premier League

Although he speaks highly of Saliba's quality, St-Maurice appears to share this view and anticipates another season on loan could be exactly what he needs.

" Arsenal fans are annoyed right now because he’s (Saliba's) not at the club and he’s doing really well in Marseille but I think last season he missed some games on top of COVID," said St-Maurice.

"Saliba needs to play more and he will come good. He does not want to come to Arsenal and sit on the bench - that’s not his mentality. He wants to be playing for Arsenal. I think next season he will make a solid case for himself."

Source

As I said above, he definitely needed to work on adding the right muscle to improve his acceleration and agility because that was a problem for him, so I'm pleased to hear he went out of his way to do so, and no doubt continues to. I also hope what this guy says about Saliba wanting to go out on loan rather than sit on the bench is the driver behind the loans and not a problem between him and Arteta.

Ricky1985

Ray wrote:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/saliba-van-dijk-arsenal-liverpool-25113330

Saliba likened to Van Dijk, but we don't need that when we have Rio Ferdinand playing for us at CB.

Give it rest, it's bloody boring! Where was van Dijk at 20 years of age? Give Saliba time, he's a kid.

Clrnc

Its funny that the previous loan watch thread there were full of hype about Saliba, every single post and report watching him is about how good he is, powerful and fast, unbeatable in the air can't wait for him to join us and improve us. Fast forward 2 years later the entire thread is all about his weakness, slow in acceleration and weak in the air and he is not good enough to play for us yet. That's football for us.

goon

Saliba is definitely ready for us imo, at least in a squad role. The argument is whether or not he'll benefit more from being a rotation player here or a regular starter elsewhere, especially without any European football.

As it is, if HE's on board with taking another year out to develop, then I think I land on it being a better move in the long term. But if it's contributed towards his general feeling of resentment, then it's a bad move. As far as I'm aware though neither he nor his agent have said much about it, so it's hard to tell.

Either way, there can't be any hesitation or assessment next summer, the plan has to be to make him an important part of the squad.

jones

Spot on Clrnc, people have to make sense of what's happening somehow. If we had Campbell in his prime or even Koscielny and Mertesacker of 2015 starting for us I'd understand sending him out on loan again but we have signed another prospect who's at least as raw as Saliba and probably not as talented, and before Ricky says something I've watched plenty of ASSE Nice and Marseille since the signing because I was excited about the kid from day one. Yes he can obviously still improve but so can White, I don't think anyone wants him to go out on loan come January do they.

If you lot don't want the constant negative comparisons you should stop rewriting history. It's a highly questionable decision at the very least, no two ways about it.

Clrnc

goon wrote:
Saliba is definitely ready for us imo, at least in a squad role. The argument is whether or not he'll benefit more from being a rotation player here or a regular starter elsewhere, especially without any European football.

As it is, if HE's on board with taking another year out to develop, then I think I land on it being a better move in the long term. But if it's contributed towards his general feeling of resentment, then it's a bad move. As far as I'm aware though neither he nor his agent have said much about it, so it's hard to tell.

Either way, there can't be any hesitation or assessment next summer, the plan has to be to make him an important part of the squad.

That's a reasonable assessment. The problem I have with this is that some people already said this 2 summers ago. Almost everyone said this 1 summer ago. And now we are still saying this. Who would have thought he isn't ready and that we will send him out on loan again this summer? Almost nobody as evident in the summer thread. But because we sent him on loan again he must be full of weakness and not ready. Thank god his contract is ending soon otherwise he might be on loan again next summer.

I am not going to be part of the negative charade here but people have to understand both sides of the view by the way. If we signed a 50m world class CB that hit the ground running you can be sure almost no one will be talking about Saliba. If we signed a 50m project that hit the ground running, same thing. Because our project has struggled way more than expected (he had a decent game against Spurs btw), questions will be asked that surely Saliba would have done at worse the same or better job? There's no need to keep criticising Saliba by the way IMO just to prove the point when he is clearly having superb seasons for the past 3 loans.

goon

Yeah to be clear I've been wanting Saliba to be integrated since day one. I'm just saying if the reasoning behind the clubs decisions is for his and our benefit (and he's on board with it) then I can get behind their decision this summer, largely due to the lack of European football.

Disagree with the White vs Saliba comparison though. I've not seen either enough to comment on their respective levels, but in terms of their stage of development, the former is more likely to acclimatise quicker due to playing in England and the PL and being 3.5 years older, heading well into his prime years. Saliba is a baby in comparison, he may well rapidly overtake White in his development, but as of now it's hard to argue that he should be the one on loan and Saliba should be the sure-fire starter.

FEBravo

goon wrote:
Yeah to be clear I've been wanting Saliba to be integrated since day one. I'm just saying if the reasoning behind the clubs decisions is for his and our benefit (and he's on board with it) then I can get behind their decision this summer, largely due to the lack of European football.

Disagree with the White vs Saliba comparison though. I've not seen either enough to comment on their respective levels, but in terms of their stage of development, the former is more likely to acclimatise quicker due to playing in England and the PL and being 3.5 years older, heading well into his prime years. Saliba is a baby in comparison, he may well rapidly overtake White in his development, but as of now it's hard to argue that he should be the one on loan and Saliba should be the sure-fire starter.

I think this is where I'm at.

The way it seems to have been handled, and the bold part is a big if, is what is getting anyone overly excited. that and the fact that it has become a proxy war for the Arteta ins vs outs. let's just hope that someone at the club is making sure that he knows he is still part of the club's plans, and trying to compensate for the huge fuck up in his loan last year.

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