William Saliba names crucial reason behind his slow start at Arsenal

31
14
William Saliba names crucial reason behind his slow start at Arsenal

"There were a lot of factors I think because when they were finishing their league season, I was in quarantine at home, where I could only run one kilometre in my house," William Saliba told L'Equipe when asked to give his opinion on why things have not worked out well for him at Arsenal so far, as cited by GFFN.

"And then there was this thing about the [French Cup] final, we didn’t know if I was going to be able to play or not. What I mean is as soon as my contract finished here [at St Etienne], I wasn’t able to train until an agreement was found. That was for 2 weeks, I wasn’t training, and the others had already started training again.

"After that, then I went over there [to Arsenal] at the end of July, they had one more week [of football], so I was training all alone. They came back from holidays two weeks later and I was still training by myself.

"When they [Arsenal players] came back I played in 2 friendlies, but I wasn’t ready, I hadn’t played for 6 months. I had no preparation and to pick up rhythm, you need to play matches.

"The coach told me I wasn’t ready, I thought 'That’s normal, these were just 2 matches and I hadn’t played for 6 months.' After that I waited for my chance, I waited for him to play me more to get a rhythm. But that’s football, it’s like that, it’s behind me and I took the experience."

Saliba is yet to make his official debut for Arsenal, only appearing in pre-season friendlies and making the bench 2 times (vs Liverpool in the Community Shield and vs Leicester in the League Cup).

Mikel Arteta spoke about last season being far from ideal for Saliba, with injuries, early end of the season and 'personal issues' affecting his levels of performance.

It's interesting Saliba does not mention the death of his parents among the reasons that contributed to his poor start in north London. Some Arsenal fans felt it had probably affected him or Arteta's decision to freeze him out.

After moving to Nice on loan, the young centre-back has impressed fans and media with his mature performances. He won the French side's Player of the Month award for January.

AuthorAleksei BlokhinSourceL'Equipe via GFFN
31
14
Best
Newest
Oldest

English Premier League Table

MP: Match PlayedP: Points

Top Players