William Saliba was a surprise absence from Arsenal’s announcement on Wednesday, with the club explaining exactly why he was missing.
“Arsenal” have announced that William Saliba will not participate in the squad for the 2026/27 season due to a “medical appointment”. The French defender has spent the last few months recovering from a back injury aggravated during the World Cup, but is nearing a return.
Given that Ezri Konsa and Cristhian Mosquera are more than capable of filling in, Mikel Arteta and his squad are certainly being cautious. The Gunners boss is also remaining tight-lipped on exactly when he could return after recently returning to individual training.
He said: “It’s been over a week now, I think he’s going to manage that load and how many reps and sessions he can do in a row, but he’s getting his ability up to a good standard now and let’s see in the next couple of weeks we can start introducing him to the team and see where we are to make him really available.”
On his return after the international break in November. Arteta replied: “I don’t know, we’re still talking about weeks and when it happens it’s very different whether he plays before or after that because it’s a very specific injury that he’s dealing with.”
Although Saliba has been spending a lot of time at the Sobha Realty Training Center recently, it seems he wasn’t there for the Gunners’ official squad photo on Wednesday.
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At 14:00, the club uploaded the photo to its social media channels and a few minutes later announced the reason for Saliba’s absence. It read: “Due to a medical appointment, William Saliba was unavailable this afternoon.”
Piero Hincapie and Martin Zubimendi joined Saliba and Christos Tzolis on Arsenal’s injury list last weekend after the unfortunate incident at the Emirates Stadium following the win over Leeds United.
Both players missed Tuesday’s Champions League win over Lille and Arteta offered a mixed update after the game.
He said: “Zubi is very, very good. Piero is getting better, but as I said, he looks more important. I think it will be a matter of weeks, I think. We don’t know exactly how many.
“Zubi is getting better. Zubi is getting better, yes. We’ll have to see when he gets on the field, how he deals with the pain and some of the little feelings he’s still going to have.”
Tzolis is also expected to miss a few weeks with Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze using the left. The latter was making his third start of the season with none of the Premier League arrivals.
With Eze and Victor Gyokeres coming into the squad, Arteta was able to rest Riccardo Calafiori, Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka ahead of this weekend’s Premier League clash with Nottingham Forest.