Mikel Arteta has intimated that all of his loan players will get a chance to prove themselves at Arsenal again this summer.
The Gunners have quite a few high-profile players due to return to North London at the end of the season.
But William Saliba, on loan at Nice, has been linked with a permanent move away from Arsenal despite never having played a competitive game, while Matteo Guendouzi is reported to have clashed with the Spanish coach during Project Restart last summer, offsetting his move to Hertha Berlin.
The Emirates Stadium side have other players due to return, like Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Joe Willock, Lucas Torreira and Dinos Mavropanos.
And Arteta has a told a pre-match press conference ahead of meeting Liverpool on Sunday the goal is to ‘try and use’ the returning players.
He said, when asked about what’s going to happen with his loan contingent: “That’ll be the thing we have to address at the end of the season.
“The reason we loan them is because we obviously want to get them some game time and see the level they can perform at, try to develop them and bring them back here to try and use them.”
The most interesting case is Saliba.
Arsenal spent £27 million on the then-18-year-old back in 2019 and although he’s impressing back in Ligue 1, he gave a number of uncomplimentary interviews about Arteta and his lack of game time in January.
There’s a lot of Gunners fans who desperately want to see the big French defender involved in the long term, but time will tell whether that’s realistic.
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