The thing about framing a transfer as a smart and affordable way to buy a potential Virgil van Dijk is it is not a good look if you completely fudge his development.
The curious case of William Saliba, the player identified by Arsenal to answer defensive prayers of the club’s future, has been difficult to comprehend while his progress stalled in London. Now he has taken a sharp turn with a loan move to OGC Nice.
On signing, he was showered with praise and optimism from Nice’s coach, Adrian Ursea, which must have felt like a blessed relief after a period of imposed frustration with no chance of playing under Mikel Arteta. On Wednesday night in Brittany, the reality of the task in hand was laid bare as he made his debut alongside his new team-mates.
Great as it might have been to be out on the grass kicking balls in earnest, Nice are a shaky side with blown confidence and a penchant for shambolic defending. They lost 2-0 at Brest and the goals conceded reflected general disorganisation and a clanger on the part of one of Saliba’s fellow defenders. The early indication is that he will get plenty of practice at the sharp end with Nice.
Saliba back in action for Nice on Wednesday night (Photo: Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images)
Saliba had a mixture of some highly composed and some looser moments, which is understandable given this was his first senior action since March. To get 90 minutes completed marked an important personal moment. He at least has a platform now to rebuild.
In France, there has been general bemusement about the way Arsenal have treated Saliba, who was highly regarded when he emerged at Saint-Etienne as a giant 17-year-old and caught the eye of many European scouts. His experience has added fuel to the long-running debate about whether teenagers should be prised away from Ligue 1 at a young age.
Given the abundance of talent that is produced through the French system, the dilemma — whether a prodigious talent would be better off developing locally or taking a high-profile and lucrative move early on — is an emotive one. Back in 1997, “l’affaire Anelka” created intense controversy when Arsenal enticed a 17-year-old Nicolas Anelka from Paris Saint-Germain. One season later, Anelka made a monumental impact as he helped Arsenal to win the double. That was one way to silence the critics.
Saliba embodies the other side of that coin. His move to Arsenal has, so far, been incredibly tough. Nice have offered him a welcome restart. It won’t be a gentle re-introduction to competition, though, as his new team have suffered since they lost the influence of injured veteran defender Dante, who held everything together. “It is a difficult situation to come into,” observes the French football expert and author of Sacre Blue
, Matt Spiro.
Losing Dante sapped a lot of belief and they have been shipping goals and making errors ever since. Nice are in desperate need of a defender with leadership. Although he is young, Saliba is seen as a top player in Ligue 1 and the coach has spoken of his example and personality. It is seen as a coup by Nice.
Having watched plenty of Saliba for Saint-Etienne before the big move, Spiro resists the narrative that the player was “not ready” for the Premier League. This argument formed the basis for the stance taken by Arteta and technical director Edu when the player was omitted from Arsenal’s playing squads. “That line is hard to accept,” Spiro says. “I’ve seen enough of him to know that’s not true. I’ve also seen the goalkeeper Alex Runarsson playing in France and it does not add up that he is considered ready enough to play when Saliba isn’t, particularly given the opposition in the Europa League group stages. Of course he could have played.”
It is not as if Arsenal did not do their homework. Saliba was watched extensively during his breakout season of 2018-19 by the scouting team run by Francis Cagigao. He ticked so many boxes the club found themselves in the unusual position of every department agreeing to sign him. Scouts, analysts and executives all bought into recruiting his potential. The internal logic went along the lines of, “We can’t buy Van Dijk for £80 million but maybe we can buy the next Van Dijk…”.
There was competition, notably from Tottenham Hotspur, and one of the factors that swung the deal for Arsenal was their willingness to loan Saliba back to Saint-Etienne. The fee — in the region of £30 million — felt heavyweight for an 18-year-old. It hasn’t gone unnoticed, though, that Leicester City have since paid more than that for his former defensive partner at Saint-Etienne, Wesley Fofana.
It also hasn’t gone unnoticed that Fofana went straight into Premier League football and has excelled.
Saliba’s loan season in 2019-20, one Arsenal hoped would accelerate his development, was badly disrupted by two different periods of injury, with hamstring and metatarsal problems, before the premature end of the Ligue 1 season owing to COVID-19. Of the 38 league games Arsenal hoped he would feature in, he was involved in only 12.
The catalogue of disappointments for Saliba really extended when a deal could not be struck between Arsenal and Saint-Etienne to allow the player to take part in the French Cup final last season. That was a harsh blow. He arrived in London and began to train with the first team around the time of Project Restart and the noises started about him being off the pace — perhaps understandably, given his lack of game time in the previous months.
It was then that Arsenal concluded a loan back to Saint-Etienne would be best, to allow Saliba to be back close to home and get that development period he missed the previous season. But with the staff responsible for transfers stretched
in the aftermath of Raul Sanllehi’s departure and the pursuit of Thomas Partey dominating Arsenal’s agenda, the arrangements slipped through the cracks.
Arsenal did not complete the paperwork in time and the move evaporated. It left Saliba in the dreadful position of effectively being a £30 million member of the under-23s, playing a few games at that level until the January transfer window opened.
Saliba, seen here at London Colney on January 1, was restricted to training and under-23s games (Photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
This treatment of Saliba seems particularly careless considering he was a young man in a new country trying to come to terms with the devastation of family bereavement when he found himself facing such an uncommon professional setback — unexpectedly frozen out of first-team opportunities as soon as he arrived at a new club.
However smitten they were with the prospect of signing Partey, Arsenal should have shown a greater duty of care to look after Saliba as well.
If there is anyone at Arsenal well positioned to relate to this kind of situation, it is Edu. When the current technical director first arrived in London as a player, he had his own story of struggling with his football while grieving. His sister was killed in a car accident shortly before he left Brazil. He spent a lot of time injured, played only a handful of times and marked one of his early outings with an own goal. Edu took great comfort in the way Arsène Wenger insisted the priority was on looking after his human rather than footballing needs.
As he recalls in the book Invincible: “Arsène wasn’t worried about whether I was playing well or not on the pitch. He was worried about my life. He would say, ‘Don’t worry about the technical way, I want to see you fine with your family, settled in London with the club, and after that, I am sure you will be OK’. He understood how hard it was for me and my family at that moment. He understood everything, all my sadness. Arsenal was the club which helped me in the most difficult moment in my life. Arsène Wenger and the club had the patience to let me try to be good again. They gave me time.” Edu was a valued member of the squad that won two titles in three seasons after that.
It is hard to imagine how testing these last few months have been for Saliba. The defender had been recruited with great fanfare for a fee that would inevitably load great expectations. Yet when he did turn up to start his Premier League adventure, his integration was thrown off course. It cannot have been something he saw coming considering the lengths to which Arsenal had gone to sign him.
Saliba has earned a reputation in France for maturity, determination and decency, and has conducted himself very calmly during this time. Nice’s coach, Ursea, is as impressed by his character as his footballing capacity. “With what he showed before he went to England, honestly, I don’t take into account how old he is,” he said. “Either the player is good or not, and that is what interests me. It wasn’t easy to impose himself in the Saint-Etienne defence, no matter his age.
“He can bring a lot of things to us, defensively and in terms of our game plan, and the way we play the ball out from the back. He can also be extremely valuable when it comes to set plays. We have lost Dante, and we’re still waiting for leaders to come through. William is a player who gives off a lot of personality.”
Saliba’s move to Nice was welcomed by Arsenal as a chance for the young Frenchman to relaunch. Edu spoke of being “confident he will have a great career with us”. Saliba is keen to do well and come back stronger. If he does, after these extra hurdles to prove himself, it will be to his eternal credit.
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