Widely seen as one of the better centre-backs in the Premier League with Arsenal, William Saliba has yet to carry that through to the France national team.
The defender hasn’t had the best time when representing his country, and that was shown once again in the 2-1 friendly loss against Germany on Tuesday night.
While it was Jean-Clair Todibo who was mostly at fault for the second goal, since it was his pass that was intercepted, the Arsenal defender didn’t help him much either, as explained by L’Equipe, who gave him a 4/10.
They explain that Saliba ‘did not reassure’ his teammate, and their ‘distress’ was on display when Germany countered after the aforementioned incident to score what would eventually be the winner.
The Arsenal star was ‘overwhelmed’ by everything happening around him, and it reflected the ‘general feeling of the duo’s nervousness’, which wasn’t helped by a poor display from Benjamin Pavard on the right-hand side of the defence.
L’Equipe aren’t the only ones critical of Saliba, as Eurosport journalist Martin Mosnier singled out the Gunners man as the one who ‘lost the most points’ in Didier Deschamps’ book with his performance on Tuesday night.
He said: “Tonight, Saliba was not good. He justifies a bit the lack of trust from Didier Deschamps. There are others too (…) but if I had to pick the main loser, it would be William Saliba.”
The general consensus is that despite all his great work at Arsenal, the France shirt still weighs a little bit too heavy on the centre-back’s shoulders for the time being, which will likely become less of a burden as time goes on, in a similar fashion to what happened with Dayot Upamecano.
