It would be a struggle to find a player having never made their senior competitive debut for Arsenal talked about as much as William Saliba. The expectation and attention on the 21-year-old are at a generational level.
Never have Arsenal had a player in this age bracket, with such little experience and assurances that has captured the focus of so much of the supporter base. Players like Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez have been obsessed over for different reasons of course but both earned plenty of appearances for the club.
The idea that Saliba might never make that fabled debut for the Gunners appears a thought too painful or ridiculous to consider for some. In fairness, from what has been seen of the player, there are plenty of arguments to support, rightly, that he is good enough to be an Arsenal player.
READ MORE: William Saliba told to seek Arsenal 'answers and guarantee' from Mikel Arteta by Emmanuel Petit
Yet Saliba himself appears now at peace with what has occurred and is very open to what the future holds. Didier Deschamps has now given him an even greater assurance of his quality and it is this which has turned the tables on his Arsenal future.
A 21-year-old centre-half starting for France but not able to be guaranteed regular starts in the Arsenal first-team opens a door for a potential move. There will be no club unaware of who and how good William Saliba is and can become.
Saliba himself will want guarantees. football.london spoke exclusively to Emmanuel Petit who backed this and said if he were the defender, he too would have expectations that he feels Arsenal cannot provide.
“He is in the first eleven with Marseille, he is playing every single game. He is probably the [most used]. As I said, if you ask him to come back to Arsenal then he will need guarantees,” said Petit.
“If you tell him I want you to come back because of what you’ve done for Marseille, this is not enough for me. If I am Saliba, this is not enough. Because this is my career as well. I am very happy to be an Arsenal player, but I want you to show me confidence and on top of it more importantly I want you to play me. I don’t want to be on the bench because when I look at White and Gabriel , they are very good together so it would be difficult to be in the middle of them.
“Even knowing that Marseille is playing with different systems tactically, he can play with three in defence. Or four, or five in defence. He adapts himself so much. But now, Arsenal with Arteta their system is the same game after game. So, there are so many questions, if I am Saliba I am asking so many questions. Maybe I would love to come back to England and play for Arsenal but there is no guarantee of that.”
Some argue that the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool are able to keep a collection of centre-halves happy without giving guarantees over playing time. However, this, at present, is simply not comparable to Arsenal who are in a completely separate bracket and cannot provide the incentive of annual title challenges and Champions League-winning targets.
Players are more willing to have their time rotating if the end result is the chance to win the biggest trophies. Saliba could one day be at an Arsenal that are fighting for that, but right now Arsenal cannot give that assurance. The hope will be in the near future they can elevate themselves to a place where that is their reality, but it is not right now.
Therefore, when another major club, be it Juventus, PSG or Bayern Munich for example, can offer Saliba not only title challenges and Champions League ambitions year-on-year, it makes a switch very attractive. Plus, these clubs have the luxury of being able to offer Saliba more minutes than Arsenal.
That might seem mad but considering PSG and Bayern in particular have been able to field young stars, who at a Premier League side the opportunities would be far less frequent. This is because the level of these hyper clubs is so much higher than that of their domestic competitors.
Ben White and Gabriel Magalhaes would not be displaced by Saliba at present based on this season’s performances and the consistent level that they have all shown. One day certainly there is scope for Saliba to be a better player than both. But is he going to get the time at Arsenal with White and Gabriel there to achieve that? Not likely.
Whereas at Bayern, Julian Nagelsmann could happily invest regular starts in Saliba over Dayot Upamecano, Lucas Hernandez or Tanguy Nianzou with little worry of the level of opposition giving them too many troubles. The Premier League level demands that clubs like Arsenal put out their best available side every single week or face being punished.
PSG too could swap out Marquinhos, Sergio Ramos or Presnel Kimpembe to invest time in Saliba with very few Ligue 1 sides able to take advantage of the risk taken by the Parisians to throw him in. This is the reality.
For Arsenal’s benefit, I hope that Saliba stays and flourishes. I hope he is willing to fight with White and Gabriel for a spot and there will still be opportunities, plenty of them, with European competition back on the agenda. But, if Saliba wants guarantees of starting regularly from next season then Arsenal would be fair to shake their heads and not make false promises.
