Mikel Arteta has revealed William Saliba volunteered to solve Arsenal’s mounting injury crisis by filling in as a makeshift striker.
The Gunners face Leicester City on Saturday hoping to cut Liverpool’s lead at the top of the Premier League to four points.
Arteta has, however, been reduced relying upon just three fit forwards in the shape of Leandro Torssard, Raheem Sterling and Ethan Nwaneri following the devastating news of Kai Havertz’s season ending hamstring tear.
Arsenal were already without Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli and Arteta concedes his will have to get creative over the course of the run in if his side are to overhaul Liverpool.
Whether Arteta is bold enough to convert one of his primary central defenders into a striker remains doubtful but the Gunners’ boss insists Saliba’s reaction typifies the attitude permeating through his squad.
‘Willy is so funny,’ he said. ‘Straight away it was one of his reactions [to offer to play upfront].
‘It’s true as well that he played there. He used to score a lot of goals. But probably a lot of players played there when they were younger.
‘You didn’t know that, eh [that Saliba was a striker]? Yeah, yeah. ‘I’ll play as striker,’ Willy always says. ‘I’ll play.’
Arteta, meanwhile, insists long-term injuries are ‘an accident waiting to happen”‘ due to the workload players face after Kai Havertz this week joined Arsenal’s lengthy list of absentees.
‘We were having a great Dubai camp and then the injury happened in an unexpected way and it’s a big blow because of the injuries we have,” Arteta said on Friday.
‘We’ve had players who are injured who’ve played 130 games in the last two seasons so it’s an accident waiting to happen when you continue to load, load and load.
‘The intensity is at a different level and the demands in terms of minutes in this competitive environment is getting higher and higher and it’s a consequence of that. The amount of muscle and tendon injuries is higher than ever so there’s a relationship.
‘We’re very limited and we’re training less than ever. There’s no time for training.
‘The biggest problem is that you don’t train the muscle, the muscle is undertrained and then you expose the muscle and the tendon to an exposure that it can’t absorb because the tendon has 72 hours to recover.’
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