Arsenal want to keep William Saliba but his agent met with Marseille president Pablo Longoria on Monday night.
It’s now three years since Arsenal signed Saliba and fans are still waiting for his first competitive first-team appearance.
Saliba joined from Saint-Etienne for £27million in 2019 but was loaned straight back to the Ligue 1 side.
Arsenal then sent Saliba to Nice for the second half of the 2020-21 season before spending the whole 2021-22 season with Marseille.
After three loan spells away from Arsenal, it’s surely time for Saliba to become a first-team star for the Gunners.
Arsenal want to keep William Saliba
Saliba has featured prominently in pre-season and Mikel Arteta suggested just days ago that the centre back has now become a ‘top player’.
Fabrizio Romano reported in June that Arsenal would only consider selling Saliba for ‘crazy’ money this summer with Marseille keen to re-sign him.
That deal looks very, very unlikely given Saliba’s pre-season role – but Marseille may still have some kind of hope.
Romano now claims that Saliba’s agent met up with Marseille president Pablo Longoria for dinner on Monday night.
Longoria will have surely been pushing for Saliba to make a return to Marseille this summer, no matter how slim the chances may be.
Matteo Guendouzi has completed a permanent move to Marseille having been on loan there alongside Saliba last season.
Yet there is surely no way Arsenal would allow Saliba to go back there either on loan or permanently this summer.
The time is right for Saliba to now kick on and push Ben White and Gabriel Magalhaes for playing time in Arsenal’s back line.
Saliba has done his time out on loan – three stints worth in fact – and no matter how hard Longoria may push, Saliba is simply primed for bigger things right now.
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