France manager Didier Deschamps moved quickly to calm concerns over William Saliba after an injury scare, telling reporters ahead of his side\u2019s friendly with C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire that the defender \u201cis fine\u201d and \u201cwould have played\u201d if required.<\/p>\n
\u201cWilliam is fine and will be managed,\u201d the typically blunt tactician shrugged. \u201cIf he had needed to play tomorrow, he would have played. I will manage the six players involved in the Champions League, even more so those who started, given what lies ahead.\u201d The repeated use of the word manage underlines that the issue will be treated with caution, even as reliable outlets have reported discomfort in Saliba\u2019s back.<\/p>\n
That reassurance will be welcome in France but it leaves Arsenal uneasy. Saliba has a recent history of playing through ankle and muscular issues to help his club through a long run-in. Now 25, he was only 17 when France won the 2018 World Cup and had not yet broken through as a starter. His sole appearance in Qatar was a 27-minute cameo in a group-stage defeat to Tunisia. Established now as arguably the best center back on the planet, he is poised for what could be his best World Cup.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta will have added concerns because the timing is sensitive. Should Saliba\u2019s injury require surgery after the tournament, a prospect tentatively floated by The Athletic, that would force him to miss the start of Arsenal\u2019s Premier League title defense. The club already saw the impact when Saliba missed the final three months of the 2022\u201323 campaign because of a back problem: the Gunners were five points clear of Manchester City when he went to the treatment room, and City went on to win the league by five points.<\/p>\n
Saliba was one of 10 Arsenal players to withdraw from international duty during March\u2019s break, a sequence that prompted comparisons between Arteta and former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. The retired midfielder, who was never afforded a senior cap by Spain himself, promised not to stand in any player\u2019s way. \u201cWhen you are fit and available to play for the national team, you have to play,\u201d he reasoned earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deschamps says Saliba ‘is fine’ and will be managed; Arsenal face possible post-World Cup risk ahead<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961],"tags":[1359,1683,1731],"class_list":["post-14182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-back-injury","tag-saliba-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}