Mikel Arteta Wants To Find William Saliba A Club In January

Mikel Arteta is fed up with questions regarding William Saliba’s future at Arsenal.

“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 told reporters on Wednesday.

“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 let 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.”

Asked about a possible loan exit for Saliba in 2021, Arteta said: “Well, I don’t know. 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.”