Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta welcomed back William Saliba for Saturday’s clash with Wolverhampton Wanderers ahead of schedule, but was forced to leave captain Martin Odegaard on the sidelines due to illness.
The Spanish boss has cultivated a reputation for providing unreliable fitness updates. Arsenal full-back Oleksandr Zinchenko even revealed the mind games which Arteta is willing to play to confuse the opposition.
“I’ve seen him tell injured players to come on the team bus and walk into the dressing room with their wash bag, to put the other manager off the scent,” Zinchenko wrote in his autobiography.
There was no misdirection surrounding Saliba’s presence at Molineux this weekend. The French centre-back has been nursing a muscle injury since the victorious north London derby in mid-January. Arteta confirmed that Saliba would be in contention to face Manchester City next weekend, but warned for “tomorrow we will see”. The 23-year-old was joined in the backline by left-back Myles Lewis-Skelly, who also overcame a knock.
“Very good to have [Saliba and Lewis-Skelly] back, they missed the last game and they’re happy to help us,” the Arsenal manager explained to Sky Sports pre-match.
Saliba unexpectedly won the race against time to line up alongside Gabriel for the trip to Wolverhampton. The Brazilian was handed the captain’s armband on Saturday in the absence of his usual skipper Odegaard.
“Martin [Odegaard] was ill this morning, we had to send him back, he was nowhere near fit to play,” Arteta revealed. “Mikel [Merino] as well has a knock, so he couldn’t make training yesterday.”
Odegaard played the full 90 minutes of the Gunners’ comfortable 3-0 Champions League thrashing of Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday night, even scoring the last goal of the game in second-half stoppage time. The talismanic attacking midfielder was replaced in the XI by teenage sensation Ethan Nwaneri.
“He’s a player who is giving us a lot in recent weeks,” Arteta said of the 17-year-old. “We trust him.”
