{"id":706652,"date":"2026-07-23T07:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/706652\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T07:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:09:15","slug":"william-saliba-arsenal-and-france-defender-set-for-spell-on-the-sidelines-with-back-injury-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/706652\/","title":{"rendered":"William Saliba: Arsenal and France defender set for spell on the sidelines with back injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> have confirmed defender William Saliba is set to miss an &#8220;extended period&#8221; after suffering a back injury while at the World Cup with France. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 25-year-old had been managing a back issue for several weeks and carried the problem into the World Cup but was forced off after 30 minutes of France&#8217;s semi-final loss to Spain. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After returning to London and being seen by a specialist, it was decided that surgery is not needed with a managed recovery programme to be commenced instead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saliba was forced to sit out France&#8217;s World Cup bronze final defeat by England. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier in the World Cup, he said: &#8220;I&#8217;ve had some minor niggles for several months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been gritting my teeth because there was the Champions League and the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The World Cup comes round only once every four years, so you&#8217;ve got to grit your teeth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saliba made 50 appearances across all competitions for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> last season, as they ended a 22-year wait to win the Premier League and also reached the Champions League final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mikel Arteta&#8217;s side will take on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester City<\/a> in the Community Shield on Sunday, 16 August &#8211; five days before the Gunners begin the defence of the Premier League title, hosting promoted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/coventry-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Coventry City<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal have confirmed defender William Saliba is set to miss an &#8220;extended period&#8221; after suffering a back injury&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-706652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}