William Saliba may be heading for a prolonged spell out because of a back injury that could, if surgery is needed, keep him sidelined for up to five months.<\/p>\n
According to L\u2019\u00c9quipe, the centre-back eventually reached the point where the pain became too much to tolerate. Slumped on the grass, Saliba told his centre-back partner Dayot Upamecano that his back was \u201cdead,\u201d and the same report said months of managed training and painkillers have left surgery as the most likely route. BBC Sport also supported that assessment.<\/p>\n
If that proves to be the outcome, Arsenal would be without their key defender for four to five months, which would push any return close to mid-December. That leaves Mikel Arteta with a major decision to make over how best to absorb the loss.<\/p>\n
The first question is whether the answer already exists inside the squad. Arsenal\u2019s spending over the past three years has been among the highest in English football, so the club cannot keep leaning on constant recruitment while other parts of the side still need work. Arteta has also dealt with Saliba absences before, with the defender missing 12 games last season because of ankle and back issues. During most of that period, Cristhian Mosquera was the preferred stand-in.<\/p>\n
Mosquera impressed in his first season in England, while also working through an online university degree in interior design. His game is proactive, but that would alter the balance Arsenal usually get from Gabriel and Saliba. Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Riccardo Calafiori, Christian N\u00f8rgaard, Declan Rice and Ben White are all possible alternatives in different ways, though each comes with clear drawbacks or fitness concerns.<\/p>\n
If Arteta decides the current options are not enough, the transfer market becomes unavoidable. Ezri Konsa looks like a short-term solution, while John Stones offers a different profile entirely. Crystal Palace\u2019s Maxence Lacroix has also been mentioned, but the more forward-looking route could lead to Jon Mart\u00edn, Castello Lukeba or Antonio Silva. When Saliba is fit again, he would be expected to reclaim his place, so Arsenal must decide whether this is a temporary gap or the moment to plan ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saliba\u2019s back injury could force Arsenal into a long absence, with internal fixes and transfer options in play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1359,1759,1683],"class_list":["post-17630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-arsenal-transfer","tag-back-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17630","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=17630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}