Arsenal have confirmed that William Saliba will be sidelined for an \u201cextended period\u201d after suffering a back injury, but the defender will not need surgery.<\/p>\n
The setback arrived in his sixth appearance of this summer\u2019s tournament, when Saliba went down against Spain in pain and had to leave the field. Les Bleus then lost 2-0 and followed that with a 6-4 defeat to England in the third-place match, while the full extent of the injury remained unclear until Arsenal issued their update.<\/p>\n
In a club statement, Arsenal said: \u201cSubsequent specialist reviews on William\u2019s return to London this week have confirmed that he has suffered a back injury which will require a period of rehabilitation,\u201d Arsenal revealed in a club statement .<\/p>\n
They added: \u201cExtensive assessments have concluded that surgery is not recommended, but William should now commence a managed recovery program. William\u2019s rehabilitation will commence immediately, with continual management of his injury, and he is expected to be out of action for an extended period.\u201d<\/p>\n
For supporters, the news still represents a serious blow. There had been growing concern that surgery would be required, a development that would have kept the Frenchman out for around four or five months and left Mikel Arteta without his best defender well into the season.<\/p>\n
That prospect has now been avoided. Arsenal did not offer a precise return date for the 25-year-old, but the recovery is expected to be shorter than first feared.<\/p>\n
The club underlined its support, saying: \u201cEveryone is fully focused on supporting William to ensure he is back to full fitness as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Saliba\u2019s absence will stretch Arsenal\u2019s defensive depth. Arteta may consider the transfer market for a temporary solution, although he already has options in the squad.<\/p>\n
Cristhian Mosquera is among those who can help, after spending time alongside Gabriel last season while Saliba dealt with different issues. The versatile Spaniard enjoyed a positive debut campaign in north London and adjusted well to the physical demands of the Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal have ruled out surgery for William Saliba, but the defender faces an extended recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1359,1569,1683],"class_list":["post-17945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-arsenal-injury-update","tag-back-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945","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=17945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}