William Saliba has been candid about the uncertainty that marked his early years at Arsenal and how those experiences shaped the player he is today. Arriving as a 19-year-old, Saliba did not immediately break into Mikel Arteta\u2019s plans and spent time with the U23s before a sequence of loans that took him back to France.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit hard because I arrived from France, then went back on loan, then six months after I came back here, I went back to France again,\u201d Saliba recalled in an interview with Arsenal\u2019s official website.<\/p>\n
“Six months there, then I changed club, then I came back here. So it was difficult. I was living in a hotel when I came here at first, then I found a house but went back to France, so when I came back after that I wanted to settle down quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those repeated moves left Saliba questioning his future at the club. \u201cI had some doubts because when you go on loan two or three times, you think maybe it\u2019s not here that I will play,\u201d he candidly admitted. \u201cBut it’s like this, in football you have some doubts sometimes, but you have to make sure you forget your doubts and you move forward, and that\u2019s what I did.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I went on loan, I kept going to improve. Then I came back here stronger. When I came back I played almost every game. When you have a new career, you have to adapt because you will have some moments where things won\u2019t go how you want. So you have to adapt and of course you have to be strong mentally to be prepared for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta handed him a starting role at the beginning of the 2022\u201323 season and Saliba kept a clean sheet in a 2\u20130 win at Crystal Palace. Since his Premier League debut, made 1,107 days after signing for Arsenal, his rise has been marked by consistent selection and recognition; he won Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year during his loan period and is widely considered one of the best in his position.<\/p>\n
Talk of outside interest surfaced as his initial contract neared its end, but Saliba committed his future to the club with a long-term extension in September. \u201cEverything was complete for me,\u201d Saliba shrugged. \u201cWe have a good team, we have a good coach, we have good staff. And I’m sure that the future here will be very good, so there was no hesitation to extend my contract with Arsenal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saliba admits doubts after loan spells but returned stronger, becoming Arsenal\u2019s defensive mainstay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303],"tags":[1081,1077],"class_list":["post-5118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","tag-adaptation","tag-contract-renewal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118","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=5118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}