William Saliba could make his Arsenal debut on Wednesday, but it will take time for the defender to adapt warned Mikel Arteta.
Beating rivals Tottenham, the Gunners won the race to sign Saliba allegedly in July 2019, but as part of the deal, he spent the 2019-20 campaign back on loan at Saint-Etienne.
Although a foot injury kept him out between November and January, Arsenal did not give him permission to appear in the July Coupe de France final against Paris Saint-Germain.
For the Ligue 1 side, he played 12 times before the domestic campaign was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic.
Arteta talked about his adaptation with reporters at the press conference.
“He’s adapting to the country, he’s adapting to our club. We have to bear in mind that he had a really challenging season last year with the amount of injuries that he had.”
“But he’s a player who’s going to be really important in our future, and sometimes things take some time and we have to respect that.”
