Press conference

Arteta on... the latest on William Saliba

Mikel Arteta has already revealed how he agonised over the decision to leave William Saliba out of his Europa League squad - so what is the latest with the French centre back?

The teenage defender was linked with a loan move at the end of the transfer window, but with no time to complete the deal he has remained with us.

 

But could the situation be revisited in January?

 

"I'm fed up with the situation because as you could see, we tried to find a way in the last few days [of the transfer window] to give him some football," Arteta said.

 

"I explained that he needed that transition year when we decided to buy him and send him on loan to Saint-Etienne. For many reasons, that didn't happen and he didn't have that transition year.

 

"He needs to go through that and at the moment, with the amount of central defenders that we have in the team, we had to leave him out of the squad which is painful. After that, we had some injuries and we could have used him but it's part of this profession.

 

"Well, I don't know [if he could go in January]. We certainly tried in the last few days of the transfer window to find the right club and we had him, but at the end of the day we could not make it and we will review the situation in the next few weeks and sit down with him as well and see what is the best thing to do.

 

"But it will depend on him and other players' situations as well."