The case of William Saliba is probably one of the most curious in Arsenal's transfer history.
The Frenchman was signed in the summer of 2019 before being immediately loaned back out to St. Etienne for the season - nothing particularly strange there, especially given that Laurent Koscielny was fully expected to see out one more year at the Emirates at the time.
However, the weirdness began the summer after. Having missed much of his spell back with Les Verts due to injury and the early termination of that Ligue 1 season due to Covid-19, Saliba was left out of Mikel Arteta's squad for the 2020/21 campaign and forced to play under-23s football before joining Nice for the second half of that season.
