Journalist Charles Watts has warned that there may be no point in playing Arsenal defender William Saliba for the recent of the season amid a worrying recent injury update
What’s the latest on William Saliba and his Arsenal injury?
The 22-year-old centre-back missed the north London club’s last six Premier League games due to a back issue.
In this time, the Gunners have dropped from first to second in the division, winning just two games, drawing three and losing the other to rivals Manchester City.
Amid these struggles, there is an understandable clamour among the fanbase to see Saliba return to action as soon as possible.
Sadly, it seems he will play no part against Chelsea on Tuesday night. Indeed, speaking ahead of the game, Mikel Arteta told the press: “He’s not going to be involved tomorrow. He hasn’t improved this week.”
With that in mind, when talking about the defender on his YouTube channel, Watts warned that Arsenal may be best to leave Saliba out for the rest of the season, so he can be fully fit for pre-season training in the summer
He said (9:40): “I look at how close we are to the end of the season now, and I just think, is there any point risking it?
“If it’s going to muck things up for the summer, if there’s any chance that it’s going to aggravate something that could end up seeing him ruled out of pre-season – and that can have an impact on next season – I just think you kind of err on the side of caution.
“Maybe if Arsenal were still top and really genuinely pushing Manchester City for his title, maybe you’d risk it…”
How important is Saliba to Arsenal?
The Frenchman had started every league game right up until his unfortunate injury, and so was a key cog in Arteta’s machine that did look capable of winning the title.
Without Saliba, however, things have fallen apart and it will now take a minor miracle if Arsenal are to win the league, as they trail City by a point despite having played one more game than Pep Guardiola and co.
With a return date still not even known yet, Saliba can only feature in four more games for Arsenal anyway (after the Chelsea match), so you can see why Watts it’s pessimistic about the need to rush him back.
Of course, the Gunners aren’t out of the title race completely, so maybe Arteta may be hoping to get the £40k-p/w defender back in time to play some part in the coming weeks.
But having missed Saliba so much in this run-in, it could be disastrous if he hurts himself even more and ends up unavailable for the start of next season.
