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William Saliba trained with the full first-team squad on Tuesday morning, then travelled with Arsenal for tonight's Champions League game at Slavia Prague. He hasn't played since the Champions League final in May. The back problem that has kept him out either began at the World Cup or, by other accounts, had been there through the end of the title-winning season before the World Cup made it worse. He was forced off in France's semi-final defeat to Spain and has been out ever since, though he started training on his own last month. "He played 45 minutes in closed door last week, and he feels ready to go," Mikel Arteta said on Tuesday evening. "Whether we use him or not is now a matter of what the team needs."
The second half of that quote matters most, because Saliba is coming back to a back line that has coped without him. Ezri Konsa cost a big fee in the summer, and he and Gabriel have given Arsenal the meanest defence in both the Premier League and the Champions League. Before tonight, by one count, Arsenal had won 11 of their 14 games this season without Saliba. The easy line is that his return hands Arteta a headache, but Arteta doesn't see it that way. "I wouldn't call it a problem," he said, before pointing out that Konsa can cover at full-back but is a centre-back who plays on either side, just as Saliba does for France and for Arsenal. That flexibility is why Arteta is right not to call it a problem.
Arsenal have 10 games between the international break and the end of the year, so the value of having Saliba back lies more in the weeks ahead than in Prague. Arteta made a similar case for Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino, saying "They are playing a pivotal role" and that looking only at who starts gives a different picture. A centre-back of Saliba's level coming into the squad is a luxury Arteta admitted he hasn't had so far, and it's worth more across that run than any single team sheet tonight.
Arteta also brushed off the Isak-Timber incident from the win at Anfield, which didn't bring a penalty, by saying he has a "library" of footage showing shirt-pulls.
Declan Rice, the man of the match at Anfield, is one of four Arsenal men on the 26-strong FIFPRO World 11 shortlist alongside David Raya, Gabriel and Saliba. Raya finished second to fellow Spaniard Unai Simon in the Ballon d'Or goalkeeper category, while the other three made the top 30. Arsenal Women have Emily Fox, Chloe Kelly, Alessia Russo and new signing Ona Batlle on the women's list. Katie McCabe, who left in the summer, is there too. Players vote for these teams, 26,317 of them from 75 countries this year, and Arsenal's four men are a goalkeeper, two defenders and a midfielder. Thierry Henry in 2006 is still the only Arsenal player to make the men's XI in the award's 21 years. The teams are revealed on Monday 9 November.
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