William Saliba has revealed he respects Mikel Arteta's call to cut him out of Arsenal's first team plans without playing a game - but admits being dropped to the club's Under-23s team was a 'good slap'.
The French centre-back moved to the Gunners for £25million in the summer of 2019 when Unai Emery was in charge, but has still never played a professional game for the Premier League side.
Arteta has twice sent Saliba out on loan to get more opportunities of first-team football - to Nice in the winter of 2021 and Marseille at the start of this season - with the 20-year-old frozen out in Arsenal's youth team when he was training in London.