Premier League leaders Arsenal are in the midst of receiving a lesson that they have not often sat down at their desks for in the last two decades in north London after Mikel Arteta’s young Gunners let a 1-0 lead slip at home against tricky Brentford on their way to dropping vitals points for the second weekend running.
The Gunners were well off the boil a week ago in their loss at Goodison Park when the Toffees reveled in the new manager bounce under Sean Dyche, and their overall performance immediately looked vastly superior to that which was witnessed under iconic former Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard.
Drawing Brentford earlier today in the capital has no doubt offered a fresh – and even more frustrating – perspective when looking back at the loss on the blue half of Merseyside. The age-old adage that, in order to win the title, you must win the matches you are expected to, is now at the forefront of the thinking of many in the fanbase. Though Arsenal is still top of the table and five points clear of holding champions Manchester City, the importance of the vital title race clash against Pep Guardiola’s usually vaunted Citizens outfit has now been doubled down on.
Should City run out winners tomorrow against former Gunners boss Unai Emery and Aston Villa, and then come out on top on Wednesday in London, Guardiola’s men will have arrested control of the table away from his former assistant and all it would have taken was just three matches for the house of cards to potentially come crashing down, even for just a moment.
Without the need or desire to catastrophize the current situation at Arsenal, which in fairness, is the best season the club has produced since their last Premier League title since the famous Invincibles season in 2003-04, it can be suggested that there is some room to be concerned across the collective and individual performances of many in Arteta’s camp. William Saliba is certainly one of those concerns.
👀 William Saliba failed to win any of the 10 aerial duels he contested against Brentford today
🤯 It’s the most aerial duels a player has contested yet won none in a Premier League match this season https://t.co/fHv8XRndqd
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) February 11, 2023
After coming up short against the dominant presence of Bees headline striker Ivan Toney at the Emirates, which included winning zero of his ten contested aerial challenges in front of a concerned Gunners crowd, part of the spotlight of criticism has begun to shine on the 21-year-old French international center-back after he also found it hard going against another physical center-forward in the vein of Dominic Calvert-Lewin last weekend.
On the surface an argument can certainly be made that putting such an abrupt pause on his level of play mid-way through the league campaign, only for him to feature in Didier Deschamps’ Les Bleus side for just 28-minutes in an appearance off the bench against Tunisia during France’s final group stage fixture, is a potential root cause for some of his struggles since coming back into the Arsenal fold.
William Saliba (21) has appeared consistently fatigued bordering on exhausted since Qatar – no questioning his positive trajectory, just that never before this season has he played regularly in continental competition alongside league action nor been at a major NT tournament.
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) February 11, 2023
Indeed, Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has also looked like a relative shadow of himself since the restart after the Norwegian goalscoring machine was on a record-setting pace in front of goal since his summer arrival from German giants Borussia Dortmund. So to suggest Saliba, along with many young players, is possibly suffering from a common ailment at his age when it comes to a lack of consistent minutes so easily directly impacting their level of performance is hardly out of the scope of realism.
The Bondy-born defender has certainly not only struggled just in terms of aerial contests of late but does seem to be suffering from late responses to what transpires in front of him as attacking moves unfold. So often of late has he been second-best when reacting to a passage of play and has failed to read his marker to a level that saw him appear clairvoyant so often early doors. But to expect him to keep that level would be foolhardy, to say the least. As suggested by GFFN, as well as Aaron Catterson-Reid, Saliba could also simply be exhausted, as one of seven Arsenal players to have started each of the club’s 21 Premier League fixtures.
Another point of view, certainly one that is hard to argue or discount, comes thanks to my friend and Football.London Arsenal writer Tom Canton (also owner and operator of the highly popular social media platform TheGoonerTalk), who earlier today posited his opinion outside of public channels when he stated “The standard he [Saliba] set was so high, even ‘good’ seems poor.”
This is certainly true to a large extent. Not only was Saliba sensational while on loan at both Olympique de Marseille and OGC Nice across the last two seasons in Ligue 1, but few expected the highly-touted young defender to come into the Arsenal fold like a house on fire under Arteta this season and outshine almost every single one of his Gunners colleagues when it comes to influential appearances, regardless of position.
In an era where reactionary opinions so often drive the conversation on social media, it would be far too easy for Arsenal fans to begin the age-old process of relocating their toys from their usual home as expeditiously as possible. But perhaps, in Saliba’s case, this is nothing more than a player returning to flight level rather than climbing on afterburners far longer than physically possible.
With Saliba, Arsenal has an absolute gem of a young defender who has rightly been viewed as one of the top players in his age bracket at his position, and certainly, fans must remember that at such a tender age in what is a very young career at the top level, the usual peaks and troughs that come with learning his trade in what is the toughest league in Europe is part and parcel of the professional level.
However, there is no shame in also suggesting that the Frenchman has struggled in recent weeks, and the club does need him to find another gear, especially on Wednesday night, if Arsenal is to finally come out on top for the first time in nearly twenty years.
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