{"id":180663,"date":"2025-09-30T18:47:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T18:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180663\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T18:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T18:47:13","slug":"champions-league-news-conferences-arteta-and-howe-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180663\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League news conferences: Arteta and Howe speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why Saliba is so important to Arsenalpublished at 16:13 BST<\/p>\n<p>16:13 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\">Tom McCoy<br \/>BBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Saliba's Arsenal record since 2022\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/d4ba734d-4275-4784-bc24-a70c8098311a.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"1041\" height=\"725\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">William Saliba&#8217;s<br \/>\n centre-back partnership with Gabriel has developed into one of the most<br \/>\n formidable in the Premier League. His ability on the ball and reading<br \/>\nof the game makes him the perfect foil for the more physically dominant<br \/>\nBrazilian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saliba has<br \/>\nwon possession more often than any Arsenal player in the Premier League<br \/>\nsince his debut in 2022, but he also plays a crucial role in build-up<br \/>\nplay. He has completed more passes than any of his team-mates over the<br \/>\npast three years and is second only to Martin Odegaard when it comes to<br \/>\ncarrying the ball forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 24-year-old also ranks second in terms of clearances and aerial duels won, with those metrics both led by Gabriel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saliba<br \/>\n was sorely missed during the during the final two months of the 2022-23<br \/>\n season, with Arsenal&#8217;s title chances disappearing while he recovered<br \/>\nfrom a back issue, but he has sat out only four top-flight matches<br \/>\nsince.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The summer<br \/>\nsignings of Cristhian Mosquera and Piero Hincapie mean the Gunners are<br \/>\nnow well stocked in central defence, but securing Saliba&#8217;s long-term<br \/>\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&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-180663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}