William Saliba offers Mikel Arteta Newcastle solution with perfect alternate Arsenal role

Arsenal have suffered with numerous injury and suspension problems for major players throughout the campaign. William Saliba, Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice have all been sent off and subsequently missed games so far this season.

Injuries to key figures have forced Mikel Arteta to rethink line-ups and play his stars out of position in big games. Thomas Partey started at right-back against Liverpool and did well as Ben White covered for the suspended Saliba, while Jurrien Timber came in for the injured Riccardo Calafiori at left-back.

Ahead of the trip to Newcastle on Saturday, Arsenal could yet be without another one of their key defenders as Gabriel Magalhaes suffered a knee issue against Liverpool. That said, Mikel Arteta was optimistic when asked on Tuesday about his chances.

"We are still assessing him, it doesn’t look bad at all," he said. "He was much better than expected, so hopefully he’ll be fine."

That said, if the Brazilian does not appear ready for Newcastle and with Calafiori also out, Mikel Arteta has some decisions to make. William Saliba's return does present Arteta with an option to use the Frenchman as the left-sided centre-half.

Despite usually playing on the right and Arteta preferring to have natural-footed players on their respective side, Saliba has played plenty of games at a high level on the left. This is his current position for the French national side when he plays alongside Liverpool's Ibrahima Konate.

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Saliba is trusted to play slightly out of position for Les Bleus. He would certainly be trusted to do the same for the Gunners.

White, Timber, Jakub Kiwior, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Thomas Partey and Oleksandr Zinchenko are the other available options to help Arteta craft his back four for the revenge mission on Tyneside. The Gunners were beaten in controversial circumstances last season and will want to remedy that.

Saliba has also partnered with Dayot Upamecano for France, again playing on the left. Didier Deschamps has been very complimentary of the Arsenal man and believes in his quality to play the role.

"They have 120 minutes together for the France national team, it's not a lot," he said in. June. "But they have this ability to be very solid in one-on-one [situations], even if there were some clearances that they could improve on, they exuded a lot of strength and calmness. We needed that against [Austria]."

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