{"id":266805,"date":"2025-09-30T15:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/266805\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T15:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:17:14","slug":"champions-league-news-conferences-arteta-and-howe-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/266805\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League news conferences: Arteta and Howe speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Saliba is so important to Arsenalpublished at 16:13 BST<\/p>\n

16:13 BST<\/p>\n

Tom McCoy<\/strong>
BBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n

\"Saliba's<\/p>\n

William Saliba’s
\n centre-back partnership with Gabriel has developed into one of the most
\n formidable in the Premier League. His ability on the ball and reading
\nof the game makes him the perfect foil for the more physically dominant
\nBrazilian.<\/p>\n

Saliba has
\nwon possession more often than any Arsenal player in the Premier League
\nsince his debut in 2022, but he also plays a crucial role in build-up
\nplay. He has completed more passes than any of his team-mates over the
\npast three years and is second only to Martin Odegaard when it comes to
\ncarrying the ball forward.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old also ranks second in terms of clearances and aerial duels won, with those metrics both led by Gabriel.<\/p>\n

Saliba
\n was sorely missed during the during the final two months of the 2022-23
\n season, with Arsenal’s title chances disappearing while he recovered
\nfrom a back issue, but he has sat out only four top-flight matches
\nsince.<\/p>\n

The summer
\nsignings of Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie mean the Gunners are
\nnow well stocked in central defence, but securing Saliba’s long-term
\nfuture is nonetheless a crucial bit of business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Saliba is so important to Arsenalpublished at 16:13 BST 16:13 BST Tom McCoyBBC Sport journalist William Saliba’s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":266806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-266805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115293916539826375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}