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William Saliba: Here to Stay ✍️

Who?

  • Van Dijk

    Votes: 31 10.8%
  • Saliba

    Votes: 241 84.3%
  • Maguire

    Votes: 14 4.9%

  • Total voters
    286

Olivier_Giroud

Active Member
Nothing at this club makes me more angry than Arteta's handling of Saliba. Such a waste. He's seemingly done something to rub him up the wrong way, so he'll never be given a chance. We'll loan him out again in a year's time if Arteta's still here, or more likely sell him for some derisory amount.
Sickening really, that is the primary reason why I want Arteta gone. Not just because of his very low level of intelligence, stubbornness, and atrocious coaching, but because of his despicable vile character. The guy is an egomaniac and is behaving like some dictator even though he has not achieve anything to deserve his post and rotten behaviour.
 

Big Nate

Member
Sickening really, that is the primary reason why I want Arteta gone. Not just because of his very low level of intelligence, stubbornness, and atrocious coaching, but because of his despicable vile character. The guy is an egomaniac and is behaving like some dictator even though he has not achieve anything to deserve his post and rotten behaviour.
What on earth did I just read. "despicable vile character", "rotten behaviour".

Please lets have actual conversations
 

Big Nate

Member
*rolls eyes

I'm done with this predicament tbh. It's obvious for whatever reason that Arteta has a whole forest up his a$$ regarding Saliba.

Hopefully he's gone by the time Saliba returns so that the next guy can give him an actual chance.

If not then we'll probably sell Saliba for £10M and he'll go on to have a really good career, and all the people hating him at the moment will pretend like they were on his d!ck the whole time.
If he does end up leaving then hopefully we are doing really well and won't mind.
 

freeglennhelder2

Established Member

Country: England

Player:Elneny
Inmamoto got more minutes than this guy! :facepalm:

Never, in the field of football, have so many tears been shed over a player so few have actually seen play” - Sir Winston Churchill 1940.
 

dka1

100% Dark Chocolate
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
Last season I didn't watch Saliba as much as I wanted to, but this season I've decided to try and watch as many Marseille games as possible.

With that said I watched Marseille's preseason game against Villarreal, and I'll actually say; it was quite an entertaining game, Unai Emery got sent off after Foyth was red carded around the 46th minute and it was hilarious when he was exchanging "unpleasantries" with the rather short statured Sampaoli.

I think Marseille largely controlled the game, though once Villarreal went down to 10 they started peppering Emery's side. Payet was sick in the game, just beautiful passing and he frequently picked the right option, I think that's an underrated skill.

Saliba's technical ability and passing:

Now onto the relevant topic; Saliba, well firstly let's just say on the ball the boy undoubtedly has skill.

I don't know if there'll be stats from the game but from what I recall he only misplaced one pass. The rest of the time his passing was really good and he's really comfortable on the ball.

For example on the 23rd minute he played what I can only describe as a sublime ball to Douzi, splitting Villarreal's defense. Guendouzi then played quite a smart first time flick to Under and this created a chance for Under which he hit at the keeper.

Again as an example of his skill; in the first half he was actually in his own box and was being pressured and as the Villarreal player ran towards him he dragged the ball back evading the Villarreal player and passed it to the keeper (I think he was lil too cocky in that play as he put the keeper under pressure, but still the skill and confidence was good).

It's only one game and it's only preseason but for me he is clearly comfortable on the ball and doesn't sh!t it when he's under pressure, he's fine taking a few touches to make sure he aligns himself properly for a pass.

And he doesn't always go for the easy pass, a few times he went for quite intricate passes that succeeded and did it when pressured.

Saliba's defensive ability:

I'll say straight up, I'm not exactly the best judge at defensive ability, especially as Marseille were mainly playing as a back three, it was a little hard to track where a player should be. So I'd welcome analysis in this regard from those more astute than me.

That said on the whole I thought he looked completely fine, certainly nothing jumped out to me to the point that we should be seriously worried (or that he couldn't play for us). But again it's just one game.

I'll start with Villarreal's goal and it wasn't his fault. It was Rongier (who was in the position of RWB at the time) that Moreno completely dusted and it was his fault they scored imo.

HOWEVER, in time I'd like Saliba to be sniffing out stuff like that, almost like VVD (sorry for saying it), and covering even if his teammates make mistakes.

Actually on that topic Saliba impressed me as he did cover Alvaro twice when Alvaro lost his man (Alvaro came on in the 2nd half to partner Saliba and Luan Peres in the back 3).

There was a "penalty scare" when Alvaro lost his man (Alvaro is not good lol) and Saliba had to quickly come in and went side to side with the Villarreal attacker who fell over, but there was nothing in it and no penalty was awarded (the right decision).

The only thing that I thought was a bit of a negative (and again maybe it's just my lack of understanding how defenders should behave) but in the first half he was marking a Villarreal player and then once they got in the box I felt it was too easy for the attacker to drift away from Saliba (he was watching the ball).

But he was in front of him ball-side (so the ball was coming in from the left side and Saliba was closer to the ball) so maybe he would've just blocked it if it came in. I think that was the only occasion something like that happened that I noticed in the game.

Lastly I'll end on a positive note; on around the 30th minute a Villarreal player got slightly goal side on Saliba and Saliba produced a fantastic tackle, and used his physicality to snip the ball (completely cleanly) despite being slightly behind him.

All in all, a 7.5 and a good performance.
 

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
This **** would never happen at Chelsea, how can the club (ownership) sit there with their hands folded while arteta continue to ruin their prized asset because he has an agenda. Madness!!
To be fair, Chelsea have young talented players on perpetual loans all the time :lol:

However, Saliba was clearly ear marked for the first team eventually and we saw what happened to Lampard when he wasn’t getting the best out of a couple key players.

It’s a shame some of us have been forced to study Saliba games in preseason or his loan to try and understand what’s happened here. As far as I can see on the pitch there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.
 

dka1

100% Dark Chocolate
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
As far as I can see on the pitch there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.

Bro it's absolutely mind boggling, the guy is so comfortable on the ball, it's like he's made to play out the back for Arteta but for some unspeakable reason the guy who was good enough for Nice last season and is good enough for Sampaoli (a very excellent coach) isn't for Arteta?

Anyway, Arteta is getting "his players" so we'll see what he does.

And hopefully Saliba continues his form in Ligue 1 and the EL (or maybe the group stage will be too much of a "challenge" for him :rolleyes:).
 

Henry boi

Well-Known Member
True but having spent so much on getting the kid to join you would think he at least would get a chance, I would understand if he's from the academy
But we literally spent 30m on him crazy
 

grange

Losing my brain cells 🥸

Country: USA

Player:Havertz
You know AM is down bad when randoms are writing multiple paragraphs on preseason friendlies. Good grief.
 

carlito'sway

Established Member
Last season I didn't watch Saliba as much as I wanted to, but this season I've decided to try and watch as many Marseille games as possible.

With that said I watched Marseille's preseason game against Villarreal, and I'll actually say; it was quite an entertaining game, Unai Emery got sent off after Foyth was red carded around the 46th minute and it was hilarious when he was exchanging "unpleasantries" with the rather short statured Sampaoli.

I think Marseille largely controlled the game, though once Villarreal went down to 10 they started peppering Emery's side. Payet was sick in the game, just beautiful passing and he frequently picked the right option, I think that's an underrated skill.

Saliba's technical ability and passing:

Now onto the relevant topic; Saliba, well firstly let's just say on the ball the boy undoubtedly has skill.

I don't know if there'll be stats from the game but from what I recall he only misplaced one pass. The rest of the time his passing was really good and he's really comfortable on the ball.

For example on the 23rd minute he played what I can only describe as a sublime ball to Douzi, splitting Villarreal's defense. Guendouzi then played quite a smart first time flick to Under and this created a chance for Under which he hit at the keeper.

Again as an example of his skill; in the first half he was actually in his own box and was being pressured and as the Villarreal player ran towards him he dragged the ball back evading the Villarreal player and passed it to the keeper (I think he was lil too cocky in that play as he put the keeper under pressure, but still the skill and confidence was good).

It's only one game and it's only preseason but for me he is clearly comfortable on the ball and doesn't sh!t it when he's under pressure, he's fine taking a few touches to make sure he aligns himself properly for a pass.

And he doesn't always go for the easy pass, a few times he went for quite intricate passes that succeeded and did it when pressured.

Saliba's defensive ability:

I'll say straight up, I'm not exactly the best judge at defensive ability, especially as Marseille were mainly playing as a back three, it was a little hard to track where a player should be. So I'd welcome analysis in this regard from those more astute than me.

That said on the whole I thought he looked completely fine, certainly nothing jumped out to me to the point that we should be seriously worried (or that he couldn't play for us). But again it's just one game.

I'll start with Villarreal's goal and it wasn't his fault. It was Rongier (who was in the position of RWB at the time) that Moreno completely dusted and it was his fault they scored imo.

HOWEVER, in time I'd like Saliba to be sniffing out stuff like that, almost like VVD (sorry for saying it), and covering even if his teammates make mistakes.

Actually on that topic Saliba impressed me as he did cover Alvaro twice when Alvaro lost his man (Alvaro came on in the 2nd half to partner Saliba and Luan Peres in the back 3).

There was a "penalty scare" when Alvaro lost his man (Alvaro is not good lol) and Saliba had to quickly come in and went side to side with the Villarreal attacker who fell over, but there was nothing in it and no penalty was awarded (the right decision).

The only thing that I thought was a bit of a negative (and again maybe it's just my lack of understanding how defenders should behave) but in the first half he was marking a Villarreal player and then once they got in the box I felt it was too easy for the attacker to drift away from Saliba (he was watching the ball).

But he was in front of him ball-side (so the ball was coming in from the left side and Saliba was closer to the ball) so maybe he would've just blocked it if it came in. I think that was the only occasion something like that happened that I noticed in the game.

Lastly I'll end on a positive note; on around the 30th minute a Villarreal player got slightly goal side on Saliba and Saliba produced a fantastic tackle, and used his physicality to snip the ball (completely cleanly) despite being slightly behind him.

All in all, a 7.5 and a good performance.

I watched the game and concur with this review. He was brilliant in the first half and made plays look so easy. He was not as good the second half but still solid. I think he is more comfortable with Balerdi (and Luan Peres, who is really good too) than Alvaro, who came in at half time for Balerdi. I look forward to see him next week for the game of the season. No doubt he will be a fixture in Marseille defense.
 

MikeVinna

Established Member
Soon as he lands at a club and he settles for a few seasons he’ll be an absolute monster. Can’t believe we’re pulling this kind of crap. He’s got everything to make it as a world class CB. Reminds me a bit of a young Varane. But I think he’s better on the ball.

Edit: Ben White is great player but I’d have kept Saliba if it meant investing that 50m on a CM for example.
 

freeglennhelder2

Established Member

Country: England

Player:Elneny
Major Arteta may have been completely unjust and pig headed about this. Or there may be some genuine concerns with Saliba that we are not party to. The truth is probably in between.

For every KDB and Mo Salah rejection story there are a thousand players who never met their potential. We’re all in with Ben White now so let’s back our new signing to the hilt and not lament on Saliba the first time White makes a defensive error. (We all know this is going to happen anyway and nobody can stop it :lol:)
 

Maybe

You're wrong, no?
As far as I can see on the pitch there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.
Definitely something off the pitch. Think Arteta didn't want him and Douzi around. With Douzi we are more aware of what happened, but not so much off Saliba.

His online complaints about his lack of chances at Arsenal completely rule out any chance of him ever playing for Arsenal under Arteta and Edu.

It's interesting how Edu/Arteta are trying to make every Raul player look like a failure. They did it with Saliba and Douzi, they were really pushing it with Pepe and they've also deleted Torreira from the club (although it seems like that guy has some personal issues that he can't handle). Bear in mind that all 4 of them would probably be starters for us last season in terms of on the pitch quality, but the club decided that Mari, Elneny, Willian, and Ceballos were somehow better options. :lol:
 

MikeVinna

Established Member
Definitely something off the pitch. Think Arteta didn't want him and Douzi around. With Douzi we are more aware of what happened, but not so much off Saliba.

His online complaints about his lack of chances at Arsenal completely rule out any chance of him ever playing for Arsenal under Arteta and Edu.

It's interesting how Edu/Arteta are trying to make every Raul player look like a failure. They did it with Saliba and Douzi, they were really pushing it with Pepe and they've also deleted Torreira from the club (although it seems like that guy has some personal issues that he can't handle). Bear in mind that all 4 of them would probably be starters for us last season in terms of on the pitch quality, but the club decided that Mari, Elneny, Willian, and Ceballos were somehow better options. :lol:
Yes, even with Saliba/Doozy banished it was ridiculous to start Willian over Pepe. Things like that cost points. Mightve been in Europe now.
 
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