William Saliba 'open to £90,000-a-month salary cut in Arsenal exit'
William Saliba ‘open to a huge £90,000-a-month salary cut to seal Arsenal loan exit and move back to Saint-Etienne’ after being exiled by Gunners boss Mikel Arteta… with young defender yet to make his debut
- William Saliba has yet to feature for the Arsenal first-team since his £27m move
- The defender was left out of Arsenal’s 25-man Europa League squad this season
- Saliba has been linked with a move back to former club Saint-Etienne in France
- Reports in France claim Saliba is open to taking a significant wage cut to move
William Saliba is willing to take a significant wage cut in order to secure a move away from Arsenal this January, according to reports.
The 19-year-old defender joined the Gunners for £27million in the summer of 2019 but has yet to make an appearance for Mikel Arteta’s squad since his loan deal from Saint-Etienne expired last summer.
Saliba was left out of the Gunners’ 25-man Europa League squad at the start of the season and is yet to make his domestic debut in English football and the teenage centre-back is expected to leave on loan this month.
William Saliba is open to taking a wage cut to £90,000-a-month to leave Arsenal, say reports
The defender has not been used by Gunners manager Mikel Arteta since arriving at the club
And according to French news outlet Canal Plus, Saliba is open to moving down to a £90,000-a-month salary in order to seal a move to former club Saint-Etienne.
Saliba, who is believed to earn around £160,000-a-month in his current Arsenal contract, came through the Saint-Etienne youth ranks and made his first-team debut in September 2018.
A breakthrough season in French football during the 2018-19 campaign, which saw the defender play 16 times in Ligue 1, caught the eye of Arsenal who signed the centre-back while Unai Emery was managing the club.
Saliba was loaned back to Saint-Etienne as part of Arsenal’s agreement to sign the player but an injury hit season saw him feature just a dozen times in the French top-flight last term.
Saliba (right) has been linked with a move to former club Saint-Etienne in the January window
Arteta used the defender in a couple of pre-season games this season but the centre-back is yet to play a professional match for the Gunners.
Saliba has not been used even though Arteta’s Arsenal suffered several injury woes during the 2020 calendar year.
Pablo Mari, Shkodran Mustafi and Callum Chambers picked up long-term injuries last season and have only just returned, while David Luiz has also missed some games this term.
Saliba (middle) has been limited to just under-23 matches and has yet to play in the first-team
Sokratis Papastathopoulous has been exiled by Arteta as well having not been named in Arsenal’s 25-man squad for both the Premier League and the Europa League.
Saliba jokingly claimed on social media last month that he is ‘locked up’ at Arsenal in the same way Matteo Guendouzi was before his exile and subsequent loan move to Hertha Berlin.
The defender was involved in an Instagram conversation with Guendouzi and Nicolas Pepe when he made the claim, with the on-loan midfielder saying the pair are ‘together’ in their north London struggle.
Saliba told Matteo Guendouzi and Nicolas Pepe last month that he has been exiled by Arsenal
Saliba (right) awkwardly told Alex Lacazette (left) he does not count as an Arsenal player
Guendouzi was dropped from the Arsenal matchday squad by Arteta last season after he grabbed Brighton’s Neal Maupay by the throat after the Gunners were beaten by the south coast club in March.
Saliba also told striker Alexandre Lacazette in a video posted on Arsenal’s social media channels that he ‘does not count’ as a Gunners player as he has not made an appearance yet.
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