Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has said he regrets leaving William Saliba out of his 25-man Europa League squad this term.
Arteta is left rueing his decision to leave highly-rated William Saliba out of the Gunners’ 25-man Europa League squad.
The Spanish manager only has Shkodran Mustafi and Gabriel Magalhaes as fit and available center-backs ahead of the fixture against Dundalk. David Luiz was the latest to join Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, and Pablo Mari on the treatment table in the weekend’s defeat to Leicester.
Fellow central defenders Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Saliba are fit but neither can be called upon after being excluded from Arsenal’s European squad.
In the case of the latter, Arteta admits he is an option he would like to have had available.
“I feel really bad for William Saliba,” Arteta said as quoted by Goal. “Because we had so many central defenders, we decided to leave him out of the squad which was really hurtful for me to do.
“I was hoping that Pablo would be back in two weeks but he had a setback and then we don’t have Pablo and we don’t have William when he’s fit and available to play, but when you make those decisions, you can’t always think about every possible outcome.”
Regardless of it all, Arteta says the young defender is developing well at the club.
“He’s in a much better place,” he added.
“He’s feeling a lot more confident around the place, his language is improving and he’s starting to understand much better what we’re doing physically.”
“He’s played a few games with the under-23s which he needed because he didn’t play any football in the last seven or eight months. Things are progressively getting better and better.”
Saliba might now have to wait for the Premier League to get his appearance. However, it could be a ‘baptism of fire’ with the Gunners traveling to Old Trafford on Sunday.
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