Arsenal will be without William Saliba for Sunday’s crucial match with Liverpool on Sunday, live on Sky Sports – so how big a miss will he be?
The French defender was shown a straight red card for pulling down Bournemouth striker Evanilson, as the Gunners went on to lose 2-0 defeat to the Cherries. The call was upgraded from a yellow card after VAR Jarred Gillett recommended Jones review the decision on-field.
A red card for the denial of a goal-scoring opportunity results in a one-match ban, with Arsenal not planning to appeal the decision, but that one match is crucial as Arne Slot’s Liverpool visit the Emirates Stadium this weekend, live on Sky Sports.
Saliba played every minute of Arsenal’s Premier League campaign last term, as the Gunners registered some of the best defensive numbers in the division last season.
Arsenal’s numbers with and without Saliba are stark. Since coming into the team two years ago, the Frenchman has only missed 11 Premier League matches. Most of them came at the back end of the 2022-23 season when he picked up a muscular issue.
The defender missed the season run-in and Arsenal weren’t the same defensively. Two-goal leads were given away, so was an eight-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, as Manchester City claimed the title again.
Who could replace Saliba?
Saliba’s absence comes at a critical time for the Gunners defensively, with Jurrien Timber’s fitness another blow for Mikel Arteta.
The Dutch defender limped out of Arsenal’s Champions League win over PSG at half-time on October 1 and has not emerged since.
If Timber can return in time for the weekend, with more information to be discovered after Arsenal’s Champions League game with Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday night, then that could allow Ben White to play alongside Gabriel at centre-back.
White has played the last two seasons as a right-back, but did partner Gabriel as Arsenal’s first-choice centre-back pairing during the 2021-22 season.
If Timber is not available, Arsenal still have plenty of options. Jakub Kiwior replaced the hole left by Saliba against Bournemouth – though his slack backpass in the build-up to the Cherries’ second goal is not ideal preparation.
Another option to fill that hole in defence is to play Riccardo Calafiori at right-back, which was the change Arteta made against PSG when Timber went off injured.
But then Arsenal would have to find a slot at left-back. Oleksandr Zinchenko returned from injury to sit on the bench against Bournemouth, but his defensive abilities have come under question for the last few seasons.
One standout defensive lapse involving Zinchenko came at Anfield last season, when he allowed Mohamed Salah to cut inside too easily and score, as Liverpool pegged Arsenal back to a 1-1 draw in December. Arteta may use that moment as a reason not to use Zinchenko if possible.
Arsenal’s red card problem – ill-discipline or bad luck?
Saliba’s red card followed sendings off for Leandro Trossard against Manchester City and Declan Rice against Brighton.
No other Premier League side has been shown more than two red cards this season, while Arsenal have more first half red cards this season then the rest of the 19 Premier League teams combined.
“To get three red cards in the first eight games is really poor,” said Jamie Carragher on Monday.
“But if it doesn’t change quickly, they’re going to have a big problem. Even though it’s early in the season, you don’t want to be three or four points behind Man City.
“It may be a situation when it’s a freak – three red cards in eight games, it happens once in your career as a manager.”
Except it is not, as it is not the only time we have seen this pattern with Arteta’s Arsenal. Red cards do seem to come in bunches.
At the start of 2022, the Gunners picked up three red cards in four games as Gabriel was sent off against Manchester City on New Year’s Day – before Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey were given their marching orders in either leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final defeat to Liverpool.
In January 2020, there were two London derby red cards in the space of 10 days for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and David Luiz away at Crystal Palace then Chelsea respectively. At the end of that year, Xhaka and Gabriel were sent off within three days of each other in back-to-back league games against Burnley and Southampton.
It means Arsenal have picked up 18 Premier League red cards since Arteta moved to north London – significantly more than any other club. On top of that, the Gunners have received two first-half red cards this season, the same as the remaining 19 Premier League clubs combined.
But Arsenal’s history with Premier League red cards goes much further back – right back to Arsene Wenger’s days, when red cards were not so uncommon in the Gunners’ ranks. So this is nothing new for the north London club.
After Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996, his team averaged nearly five red cards a season in his first six campaigns. When they won the double in 2002, they picked up six red cards that term, including three dismissals before the start of November.
During that double-winning season, Wenger even admitted his team trained regularly in a shape of 10 players, so high were the chances of getting a player sent off.
Back then Arsenal’s red-card culprits were exactly who you would expect. Martin Keown and Patrick Vieira were regularly down the tunnel prematurely, while Ray Parlour was sent off twice before Christmas in that 2001/02 season.
There was a familiar feeling during Arteta’s early years. Luiz was sent off three times within Arteta’s first two years in charge, Xhaka and Gabriel twice in the same period. It tended to be the same faces.
This season, those culprits are more unfamiliar. Rice, Trossard and Saliba have all been dismissed for the first time in their Premier League careers. The latter had not even been dribbled past by an attacker once this season before his sending off against Bournemouth on Saturday.
It creates the notion that Arsenal’s spike in red cards is not an old Achilles heel of ill-discipline emerging, rather the Gunners falling victim in unfortunate circumstances to the increased scrutiny on minor incidents.
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