William Saliba Injury: William Saliba Return Date: Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is not confident that William Saliba will play again this season. The French defender suffered a back injury in the loss to Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League and has been out of footballing action since then and is definitely out of Friday night’s home game against Southampton. Follow Premier League News Updates on InsideSport.IN.
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Arteta on William Saliba injury: “He’s not progressing as quick as we hoped. We have to be delicate and we want to be very certain when we push him that he’s ready”. ⚪️🔴 #AFC
“Next week we will have more certainty”, he added. pic.twitter.com/4bBLHr2mC4
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 20, 2023
Head coach Arteta is uncertain about Saliba’s return before the end of the season admitting the 22-year-old is ‘not progressing as quickly as we hoped.’ In the pre-match press conference, Mikel Arteta said, ‘With William, we are still to wait a little bit more. He’s not progressing as quickly as we hoped.’
‘We have to be delicate and we want to be very certain when we push him that he’s ready to absorb the load and the risk that we would take. At the moment, that’s not possible.’
Saliba has missed four Premier League games with the back injury sustained against Lisbon, as Arsenal conceding six goals in this period, having faced Crystal Palace, Leeds United, Liverpool, and West Ham, which record 20% of total goals they have conceded all season long.
Rob Holding has replaced the Frenchman partnering alongside Gabriel Magalhaes, but enduring a tough time, giving away a penalty to Diogo Jota at Anfield and was not able to cope with the speed and physicality of Michel Antonio on Sunday.
In the four consecutive games, they have failed to keep a clean sheet as the Frenchman has been immensely missed to the right of Gabriel Magalhaes at centre-back in recent weeks.
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Moreover, when asked if the Frenchman’s back injury could possibly be a season-ending injury, Arteta replied, ‘don’t know, next week we will have more certainty. There is some evolution. He is doing more activity but he’s not there yet to start to throw him on the pitch at the level that the session demands to compete in this league.’
Arsenal are struggling over Oleksandr Zinchenko’s fitness he missed the last game at London Stadium with a groin injury and Arteta conceded the Ukrainian is likely to be out for Friday’s clash.
‘We will see that one [Zinchenko] as well, it’s not certain,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s a muscular injury and he needs some time to heal and we’re not there yet.’
Following Friday night’s home game against Southampton, they next travel to Etihad to face Manchester City in the mouthwatering title showdown clash.
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