Speaking on the Seaman Says Podcast, Lee Dixon has expressed some concerns about William Saliba despite his fantastic Premier League debut for the Gunners.
Dixon was very impressed by Saliba, but he’s refusing to get carried away in the hype surrounding the Frenchman right now.
The pundit is acutely aware of the fact that Saliba is only a young man, and he says that his confidence could be rocked by a poor performance against a top team, stating that a game away at Anfield could see him fall to pieces.
What’s been said?
Dixon spoke about, and shared concerns, about Saliba.
“He performed brilliantly well, Saliba, 21 years of age, he’s been away and everyone’s now saying ‘where’s he been?’ He’s been learning his trade and doing the right thing. Chelsea loan out 50 players a year and nobody says anything. We send one out and it’s as if we don’t know what we’re doing and we should have had him back earlier,” Dixon said.
“Come back to me in 37 games and we’ll give you an assessment of how Saliba has done. As well as he’s done and as confident as he looked on the ball, that could go, I don’t know him as a player under pressure at Anfield where he gets nutmegged and gives a couple of goals away, he might go to pieces. You might have to leave him out of the team because he’s now a broken footballer and you need to protect him. There’s a million questions to be answered, but you can only give an opinion on what you’ve seen.”
Time will tell
As with any 21-year-old footballer, there are a lot of unknowns with Saliba.
His physical and technical attributes are there for all to see, but it’s all of the intangibles that could be his undoing.
Confidence, attitude, composure and the ability to handle pressure are all just as important as any technical ability, and we, quite simply, don’t know if Saliba has those skills at the top level.
All the signs surrounding Saliba are very positive at the moment, but we can’t be certain that he’s the finished product just yet.
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