times, winning 49 matches and picking up 29 clean sheets along the way. In both seasons, Arsenal have challenged for the title, finishing twice on each occasion.
Last term, the north London side picked up 89 points. Before the campaign began, the average points needed to win the competition was 87.67, but with Manchester City picking up 91 points, the Gunners were incredibly unlucky to fall just short.
GIVEMESPORT Key Statistic: Last season, Arsenal won more Premier League games (28) than the Invincibles in 2003/04 (26).
And were it not for injury, Saliba may already be a title holder under Arteta. In 2023/23, the centre-half played the first 27 league games, losing just three times, drawing a further three games, and winning the rest. He then suffered a back injury and was out for the rest of the reason.
In that time frame of 11 games, Arsenal lost and drew the same amount of games (three each) in the previous 27 matches. As such, the Gunners went from having a five-point lead at the top of the table, to finishing second behind Man City by a gap of five points – suffering a 10-point swing in just 11 games without Saliba.
On this evidence – with the margins so fine in a title race – even a medium-term injury for the Frenchman could be catastrophic for the club’s title ambitions. With that said, should he move to Real Madrid at any time in the foreseeable future, it’s highly likely that Arsenal would struggle to replace him.
Notably, his high level of passing skills make him perfectly suited to play the possession-based style of football
Arteta likes to employ. As displayed in the stats below, which show how he compares to positional peers in the men’s top five European leagues, as well as the Champions League and Europa League over the last 365 days, Saliba is one of the best in the world – finishing in the top 80% or so percentile for all the recorded passing categories.
Saliba Passing Skills
Statistic
Per 90
Percentile
Passes Completed
69.46
88
Passes Attempted
75.71
88
Pass Completion %
91.7%
91
Total Passing Distance
1138.01
78
Progressive Passing Distance
408.97
80
Passes Completed (Short)
32.37
94
Passes Attempted (Short)
34.37
94
Pass Completion % (Short)
94.2%
80
Passes Completed (Medium)
33.53
82
Passes Attempted (Medium)
35.70
82
Pass Completion % (Medium)
93.9%
79
Saliba The Most Valuable Centre-Back in World Football
Making him near-impossible to replace
William Saliba
The good news is that Saliba still has three years remaining on his £190,000-per-week contract, so the club are in a strong position when it comes to negotiations. As well as that, he is valued as being worth €105.2m (£89m) by CIES Football Observatory’s statistical model, making him their most valuable centre-back in world football.
Most valuable centre-backs in world football
Defender
Value
Club
Age
Nationality
William Saliba
£89m
Arsenal
23
French
Antonio Silva
£86m
Benfica
20
Portugal
Castello Lukeba
£72m
RB Leipzig
21
French
Giorgio Scalvini
£68.5m
Atalanta
20
Italy
Gabriel Magalhaes
£68m
Arsenal
26
Brazil
But as one of the best centre-backs in the game, if not the best, even with plenty of money to sign a replacement, finding someone of the same level would be near-impossible. With that said, it is therefore absolutely imperative that Edu finds a way to fend off Real Madrid’s transfer advances.
Arteta looks likely to have the 2024/25 season to work with Saliba but any time beyond that is less certain. With Pep Guardiola still in charge, Man City will be favourites to win the league next term. If that happens, and then Saliba departs, the Arsenal project under the Spaniard may well collapse having failed to reach the heights they are so close to scaling.
