William Saliba (2)

[Salibatelli]

He’s top class, no surprise Madrid would be interested.

[Marsbar100]

We need to keep

[swipe right]

This guy is the standout defender of his age group. He’s going to be a big player as he matures and gains experience.

[Highbury Hillbilly]

Won't ever play for us with Arteta at the helm. We should try to sell in the summer and reinforce CF and CM.

[Tubbs]

Why is it he went on loan was it because he was home sick or something? Or did he sign and immediately regret it? Not sure what happened with him

[Ach]

Cos Arteta is a fool. It's as simple as that.

[Highbury Hillbilly]

Why is it he went on loan was it because he was home sick or something? Or did he sign and immediately regret it? Not sure what happened with him

Went on loan because we spent £50m on Ben White. The year before, we bought Gabriel M and stuck Saliba in the reserves for half a season.

[theHotHead]

Cos Arteta is a fool. It's as simple as that.

[jayramfootball]

Why is it he went on loan was it because he was home sick or something? Or did he sign and immediately regret it? Not sure what happened with him

He wasn't ready to play in the PL, so he got some U23 games and was poor in them.
So we loaned him out to get minutes and work on his game.
Right now looks like it might work out well - we'll see when he comes back in the summer.

[theHotHead]

Why is it he went on loan was it because he was home sick or something? Or did he sign and immediately regret it? Not sure what happened with him

He wasn't ready to play in the PL, so he got some U23 games and was poor in them.
So we loaned him out to get minutes and work on his game.
Right now looks like it might work out well - we'll see when he comes back in the summer.

So he went out on loan and immediately looked like one of the best young CBs in Europe - which is what he looked like when we signed him for the princely sum of £27m

But .. Arteta Knows LOOOOOL

[jayramfootball]

Why is it he went on loan was it because he was home sick or something? Or did he sign and immediately regret it? Not sure what happened with him

He wasn't ready to play in the PL, so he got some U23 games and was poor in them.
So we loaned him out to get minutes and work on his game.
Right now looks like it might work out well - we'll see when he comes back in the summer.

So he went out on loan and immediately looked like one of the best young CBs in Europe - which is what he looked like when we signed him for the princely sum of £27m

But .. Arteta Knows LOOOOOL

Stop being a fool.
When we signed him he’d played a handful of games and was simply a highly touted youngster.
He turned out not to be ready, floundered in the U23 and was loaned.

His development has been handled very well, like most of our youngsters.

[Est83]

Strange that the 23 year old American CB we've just bought it left footed.

Arteta's spoken about the importance of a left footed left-sided CB to help open up the pitch when playing out from the back. White is right footed, Gabriel is left footed... we've got Holding as cover for the right side, Saliba (also 23 right?) as cover for the left side.

I agree with jayram that we've handled Saliba just fine. We haven't desperately needed him, and we've given him some important developmental years within his home country getting invaluable experience. He'll be way better when he returns than if he hadn't gone out on loan at all.

Buy another left footed, left-sided 23 year old CB in an already young back line-up? Seems odd.

... does this say anything about how Arteta feels about Saliba's future with us?

[jayramfootball]

Strange that the 23 year old American CB we've just bought it left footed.

Arteta's spoken about the importance of a left footed left-sided CB to help open up the pitch when playing out from the back. White is right footed, Gabriel is left footed... we've got Holding as cover for the right side, Saliba (also 23 right?) as cover for the left side.

I agree with jayram that we've handled Saliba just fine. We haven't desperately needed him, and we've given him some important developmental years within his home country getting invaluable experience. He'll be way better when he returns than if he hadn't gone out on loan at all.

Buy another left footed, left-sided 23 year old CB in an already young back line-up? Seems odd.

... does this say anything about how Arteta feels about Saliba's future with us?

Saliba is only 20.
He has plenty of time and will have 2 years left on his contract come the summer.
He seems like a good kid - working hard to improve and succeeding. From what he has said, he has taken his failure to break into the first team in a good way. He was just 18 when he joined.

The American guy? I also don't see the sense of it - I think it's weird. He plays for Kroenke's US team and I don't believe either Arteta or edu would have really wanted him. I heard somewhere we're going to loan him out as soon as he joins us in the summer. It's almost like Kroenke was just doing someone a favour and moving money around between his businesses.
Never know, however, he might be good.

Some video of him

[Salibatelli]

Yeah we basically need him to sign a new deal in the summer or he’ll be down to a year and the if one of the big clubs comes in he’ll be off and we’ll have to take a hit on his value.

Makes no sense to send out a player who cost 27 million on loan for that long.

[Ach]

Oh it's been a major f**k up no doubt.

He was more than ready to come in and fight for a place. Been screwed around and it's been 27m wasted and we'll probably sell for 5m or something.

Or for free seeing as that's what we do