Marseille are persisting in their hunt to land William Saliba after the French club's president flew to London to meet with the Arsenal defender's agent.
Saliba spent last season on loan with L'OM, winning the Ligue 1 Young Player of the Year award thanks to a slew of outstanding displays. He also helped Marseille qualify for the Champions League, but the 21-year-old is now back in north London, with Mikel Arteta recently declaring that he's "ready" for the step up at his parent club.
But despite the Gunners boss making it clear that Saliba is part of his plans ahead of the new campaign and offering him minutes in pre-season, Marseille continue to pursue the France international. Marseille president Pablo Longoria was in London on Monday evening for dinner with Saliba's agent, Djibril Niang.
While Longoria and co can try and tempt the Frenchman back to his homeland by offering guaranteed first-team football, Arsenal are finally prepared to deploy Saliba after shelling out £25.6million to sign him from St Etienne in June 2019. After the Gunners thrashed London rivals Chelsea 4-0 in a pre-season friendly in Orlando on Saturday, in which Saliba played all 90 minutes of, Arteta lauded his assured performance.
"I am really pleased to see the way he is playing," the Spaniard beamed. "The way he has adapted to the team, the maturity that he's shown at 21 years old, carry on doing it. We will keep developing him, he has huge potential, he is already a top player and we have to make him even better. He looked ready to me today."
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Earlier in pre-season, as Arsenal cruised to a 2-0 victory over Everton, Arteta was also full of praise. "He was really good. I think he played a really good game, he looked really composed, straight away from day one he looked completely focussed, he's evolved the way we wanted and today I think he had a great performance."
Technical director Edu isn't believed to be sounding out any centre-backs in the remaining weeks of the summer transfer window, as Arsenal prioritise midfield. Arteta explained back in May that it's now Saliba's time to shine after three seasons out on loan.
"We made the right decision [to loan Saliba out]," he told RMC Sport. "He has to come back. He has the experience necessary to be competitive with us. If he had stayed with us this year, with one Premier League match a week, with Ben White and Gabriel [Magalhaes], he wouldn't have had half the playing time he had with Marseille, that's for sure.
"For his growth and what he can do next season that wouldn't have been good. William wasn't with us because he wouldn't have had the playing time to gain experience. That's it, there's nothing else."
