Arsenal\u2019s official 2026\/27 squad photograph drew attention for one clear absence: William Saliba was not in it.<\/p>\n
Given Saliba\u2019s importance to Arsenal\u2019s progress, and to their title triumph last season when they became England\u2019s soccer champions for the first time in 22 years, his omission stood out immediately. The defender has been central to the club\u2019s rise, despite arriving as a teenager in 2019 and not establishing himself as a first-team regular until three years later.<\/p>\n
His absence from the image was not related to anything behind the scenes. Arsenal explained that the shoot clashed with a pre-arranged medical appointment, meaning he was unavailable on the day.<\/p>\n
“Due to a medical appointment, William Saliba was not available this afternoon.”<\/p>\n
The reason for that appointment is tied to the back injury he sustained during the 2026 World Cup. Saliba has yet to play a minute this season after aggravating a pre-existing back complaint in France\u2019s semifinal defeat to Spain at AT&T Stadium on July 14. He was initially described as being out for an \u201cextended period,\u201d and his recovery has taken months.<\/p>\n
There are, however, signs of progress. In early October, he returned to individual work on grass, which is often an important stage of rehabilitation. More recently, Arteta offered a measured but encouraging update.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re managing that load. He\u2019s building his capacity to good standards, and let\u2019s see in the next few weeks,\u201d the Gunners boss explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still talking about weeks. When that happens, it\u2019s very different whether he would play just before or just after [the next international break in November]. I cannot tell you exactly.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, Saliba remains sidelined, but Arsenal\u2019s latest update suggests the end of his layoff may be approaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
William Saliba missed Arsenal\u2019s squad photo because of a medical appointment linked to his recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[1836,242,180],"class_list":["post-21778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21778","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=21778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}