Nah they weren’t, I went out if my way to watch Saliba a few times in France back then as I was baffled with the decision.
Although the argument can certainly be made it helped fast track his development and confidence and has contributed to the player we see today.
That argument has a hole in it because we wasted 6 months of his development by neither registering him nor sending him out on loan.
Playing Saliba ahead of Holding, Mari, Mustafi would have been a good education to him in those 6 months. Mari was injured till November at the time.
And Keeping Saliba would have secured Top 4 in 2021-22 season.
Defensively he was better than all 5 of those players at the time. Everything he’s doing now, he was doing at both St Etienne and Nice. Maybe little more adventurous which invited problems at times but the quality was obvious.
He was certainly not doing then when I saw him at Saint-Etienne. Nor was he expected to, he was 18 at the time.
Best center back in the league.
No one comes close.
His dribbling is insane
I’m sorry but this is ridiculous. How can you dribble from a defensive perspective and have such high level of composure as a defender?
Was Saliba a striker or something during his early days of his career?
Tbh I thought he well overplayed there and got a bit lucky to get a way out.
Class when it worked out but had potential to look stupid.
Salibaldinho
Didn’t deserve to be on the losing side. St James Park is a cauldron and he was the coolest guy on the pitch.
An absolute star. What a fucking diamond.
https://twitter.com/afcjxmes/status/1723009882025087224?t=j_SatagkpEEb03EmhiaV2Q&s=19
Nailed on for one this weekend now
Fucking wowza
Jesus, the composure of this guy! Arguably the only player in the world in his position I feel comfortable with making a mistake. His recovery and calmness is elite. I genuinely think he’s on the tip of world class if not already being here.
We better win a major championship in the next two years or this guy is off.
He is comfortably the best CB at the club and decidedly one of the best in the world at his position right now.
I can’t think of a scenario or game in world football where this guy would look out of his element.
Need to make sure we win things soon other wise the big 4 European clubs will come to collect. And knowing Arsenal, we’ll sell him at a cheap rate, even though he shouldn’t be going for anything under £120m
Fuckkkkkkk. That is ridiculous
