‘Arteta Treated me as Nobody’ – Arsenal Defender Saliba

Arsenal defender, William Saliba has exposed Mikel Arteta’s attitude towards him.

The 20-year-old maintained that the coach’s disregard helped to bring him (Saliba) back to reality.

Recall, Saliba sealed a move to Emirates stadium from French League one side, Saint-Etienne for a fee around £27m in 2019.

However, the French defender has not featured in any league matches for the Gunners.

He had only played for the club’s Under 23s after been excluded from Mikel Arteta’s first-team squad.

Saliba, since joining Arsenal has moved to three different clubs on loan including his former club, Saint Etienne, Nice and currently at Marseille.

Saliba told Eurosport:“There are hard times, I hadn’t played a game for six months.”

“You have to fight in a career. We must take that as a lesson to go further. It gave me a little slap to say:‘You are nobody! You can be bought for 30 million euros, arrive in a club and we put you aside.”

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“I took this experience by being positive. I feed on it. I know what it’s like not to play for six months.

“Today, I want to play every game. It puts the ideas back in place.”

“Before arriving at Arsenal, I said to myself: ‘Who am I going to play with?” And then you are not even in the group in the Premier League.”

Saliba added: ” I’m on loan, But I pretend I’m there for many years. I’m not thinking about returning to Arsenal [right now].”

” I give myself to Marseille. I don’t think about what will happen afterwards.”