France lost William Saliba from their World Cup semifinal against Spain inside the first half hour, with Crystal Palace\u2019s Maxence Lacroix swiftly summoned from the bench. The towering 26-year-old Lacroix was introduced to cover the setback; he is described as a capable Premier League defender and a freshly crowned European champion (of the Conference League). Saliba\u2019s withdrawal was a major blow for Didier Deschamps\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
The Arsenal centre back entered the tournament carrying a recurring back problem after aggravating that issue in the Champions League final. Reports had suggested the injury might rule him out before kick-off, a scenario Deschamps moved to reject, but Saliba\u2019s summer has been shaped by managing the nagging complaint.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve had some minor niggles for several months,” Saliba revealed during the group stage. “I\u2019ve been gritting my teeth because there was the Champions League and the Premier League. But the coaching staff are handling it very well.<\/p>\n
“The World Cup comes round only once every four years, so you\u2019ve got to grit your teeth. I\u2019m not at 100%, but there are plenty of players who aren\u2019t at 100% either. You can\u2019t make excuses.” <\/p>\n
Until the semifinal Saliba had featured in every meaningful minute for France, the only exception being the group-stage finale against Norway after qualification was secured. In the days before the Spain match he missed a France training session; his usual centre back partner Dayot Upamecano was also absent from that session, although Upamecano did not appear to be impaired during the match build-up.<\/p>\n
At club level Saliba remains a defensive linchpin for Arsenal and is regularly selected by Mikel Arteta even when not fully fit. There is concern about the short-term outlook: several French media outlets have speculated on the possibility of surgery once the World Cup concludes, a step that could restrict the 25-year-old\u2019s availability for Arsenal at the start of the new season in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saliba replaced early in World Cup semi; Lacroix on, surgery talk looms and Arsenal season at risk. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961],"tags":[1683],"class_list":["post-17322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","tag-back-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17322","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=17322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}