{"id":734233,"date":"2026-08-11T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T05:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734233\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T05:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T05:30:12","slug":"arsenal-step-up-push-for-defensive-cover-with-timber-and-saliba-sidelined-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/734233\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal step up push for defensive cover with Timber and Saliba sidelined | Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arsenal are stepping up their efforts to sign defensive cover for William Saliba after Mikel Arteta revealed that Jurri\u00ebn Timber is well away from returning to competitive action. Saliba will be out for an extended period after breaking down during the World Cup with a back injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After Arsenal lost a second successive friendly when Borussia Dortmund won 3-2 on Sunday<\/a> to lift the Emirates Cup in a performance that featured several defensive mistakes, Arteta would not be drawn on when the France defender is expected to return, but said it would take \u201csome time to heal\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are also concerns over Timber, who pulled out of the Netherlands squad on the eve of the World Cup after failing to recover from a persistent groin injury that forced him to miss most of the run\u2011in last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cJurri\u00ebn is progressing really well,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cHe\u2019s on the pitch, he\u2019s doing quite a lot right now, but it\u2019s still weeks away. I cannot tell you how much.<\/p>\n

\u201cWilliam Saliba is in rest mode at the moment for two weeks. He had to do almost nothing, an aggravated injury, so it\u2019s going to take some time to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed on how Arsenal<\/a> will cope without Saliba, he said: \u201cWe have experienced that in the past, unfortunately. When he\u2019s been available, he\u2019s hit home and the stats are incredible. We know we lost a massive player, the same with Jurri\u00ebn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arsenal have had a bid for Aston Villa\u2019s Ezri Konsa rejected and are expected to return with a new offer for the England centre-back, who is also capable of playing at right-back. Villa value him at \u00a360m, but with less than two years left on his contract Arsenal are unwilling to pay that much for the 28\u2011year\u2011old.<\/p>\n

The Premier League champions have also shown an interest in signing Cristian Romero from Tottenham, but any move for the Argentina defender is extremely unlikely given Spurs\u2019 reluctance to sell to their north London rivals.<\/p>\n

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Arteta, who started against Dortmund with Cristhian Mosquera in central defence alongside Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es, said Arsenal\u2019s existing players must get up to speed before the Community Shield against Manchester City on Sunday, but did not rule out bringing in another defender.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be the right player in the market to make us much better,\u201d he said. \u201cWe conceded some poor goals today, in the way we competed especially. But that\u2019s a collective responsibility. So we need to improve with the players we have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal are stepping up their efforts to sign defensive cover for William Saliba after Mikel Arteta revealed that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-734233","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\/734233","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=734233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}