We knew the boss-sized William Saliba, the one who had gotten into the habit of annihilating Premier League attackers with a form of sadistic pleasure for two years, and yesterday we had his cousin, the one who had already introduced himself, seems he said, during the Blues rally last week. Guilty on the Israeli goal ten days ago in Budapest (1-4), he was adrift four days later against Belgium, between damaging losses of balls (including the one leading to the penalty), sometimes naive mistakes, and offsides covered repeatedly. Yesterday, the best defender in the Premier League in recent months needed to get his head back on track, but the mechanics went wrong again.
Holder against Bournemouth (0-2), the Frenchman precipitated the fall of his team by being sent off after only 30 minutes of play. A foul 50 meters from his goal to cut off the action of Evanilson, who was going to challenge Raya. Result for the Gunners: two goals conceded in the second half under pressure from the Cherries and an absence for Saliba against Liverpool next weekend. “The Rolls-Royce engine crashed”joked English commentator Jon Champion yesterday. For Mikel Arteta, the pill necessarily stung the glottis a little more: “playing 65 minutes with ten at this level is an impossible task. It’s an accident, we need to be at 11 if we want to achieve our goals”he declared, while three of his players have already been sent off in the Premier League this season (Rice and Trossard before Saliba).
Saliba is not spared
“The central defender was sent off for the first time in his life when VAR intervened. A professional foul… at the halfway line”writing The Sun about French. If the expulsion of Saliba initially divided on social networks, the former England coach, Jamie Redknapp, estimated on Sky Sports that it was well deserved: “I mean… He still has a lot of meters to go to his goal. As soon as he made the mistake, I said to myself: Saliba, you’re going to be in trouble. He’s going the wrong way. He’s one of the fastest defenders in the Premier League, he could have come back. If there is a fault? But absolutely. » Even former Gunner Theo Walcott agreed: “For me, the decision is the right one. It’s a goal action.”
For his part, the Daily Mail gave Saliba a rating of 4.5, with a strong assessment: “It was a bad decision to want to retain Evanilson, who the VAR rightly deemed worthy of a red card. The contact was light, but the Frenchman knew very well what he was doing.” Goal is even worse with a score of 3/10, the worst on the Arsenal side: “He left Arsenal with a mountain to climb after his expulsion.” Football London writing : “he appeared to panic and knocked Evanilson down. If he had been more tender, he might have gotten away with it, but there was no subtlety in the duel.”. THE Mirror explains that the Frenchman “made the task even more complicated for his team”while The Evening Standard gives him the worst score of the meeting: 4/10: “sent off after 30 minutes for causing Evanilson to fall. Put in difficulty after a missed pass from Leandro Trossard and a failed intervention. The referee gave him a yellow card, but the VAR turned the card into a red.” Saliba will quickly have to remove the gray areas.
