Arsenal vs Southampton: Mikel Arteta provides fitness update on William Saliba

Now the Gunners have a chance to bounce back from those setbacks when they welcome Southampton to the Emirates Stadium.

William Saliba for Arsenal. Credits: Twitter/@Arsenal
By Karthik Raman | Apr 21, 2023 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

Arsenal are gearing up for an important Premier League contest against Southampton on Friday night. The Gunners have been at the top of the table for the majority of the campaign, however, they have seen their lead at the top cut short following their recent results. In their last two matches, Arsenal threw away two 2-0 leads to settle for draws. This helped second-placed Manchester City massively to close the gap at the top. Now the Gunners have a chance to bounce back from those setbacks when they welcome Southampton to the Emirates Stadium.

Ahead of the match, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta gave a squad update. It also included the fitness update of their centre-back William Saliba, who has been out injured for a while now. On the team news, Arteta, quoted by arsenal.com, told in his press conference, “There’s no big news, the picture hasn’t changed from last week. Regarding William, we still have to wait a little bit more. He’s not progressing as quickly as we hoped and it is a bit delicate so we want to be certain that when we push him, he’s ready to absorb the load and the risk that we’ll take, and that’s not possible at the moment.”

When asked whether Saliba will play again this season, he responded, “I don’t know, it’s a bit early to know. Probably next week we’ll have more certainty. There is some evolution, he’s doing more activity but is not there yet to start to throw him into the pitch at the level the sessions demand to compete in this league.” Speaking about Zinchenko’s fitness, the manager said, “We’ll see about that one as well, it’s not certain. It’s a muscular injury and it needs some time to heal and we’re not there yet.”

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What is at stake is incredibly beautiful: Mikel Arteta

The recent results have made many question Arsenal’s chances of retaining the top spot in the Premier League. Asked what he has said to those who have written Arsenal off, Arteta replied, “Nothing – I cannot communicate it enough here properly but what I can say is that our players have full belief in what we do and what we know is that what is at stake is incredibly beautiful and we want to fight for it. The best way to do it every single day is what we continue to do, and tomorrow play really well, play with our crowd every single ball and create an incredible atmosphere and win the game.”

When these two sides played each other earlier this season in the Premier League, Southampton held the Gunners to a 1-1 draw in their own backyard. Asked what he learnt from the draw, Arteta replied, “Hopefully that we are in a better place, but it is true that that game had very critical moments where we could have closed the game and we didn’t.”

“In the second half and especially in the first 25 minutes it was pretty disappointing, but credit to the opposition as well – when you’re unable to do what you want to do for long periods, it means the opposition are doing something right. After analysing Southampton in a lot of detail, they have impressed me quite a lot. If you watched the last game that they played, how they lost by the margin they lost, that margin wasn’t there. What Ruben and the coaches are doing is really good, and the rewards maybe haven’t been there in terms of the results in some games but they are a really good team.”





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