Arsenal’s William Saliba responds to Dimitri Payet dig over France call-up

By Chris Hughes On Apr 8, 2022

FBL-EUR-C4-BASEL-MARSEILLE — Saliba made his debut for France last month (Picture: Getty)

Arsenal’s William Saliba has hit back at Dimitri Payet who mocked his France call-up earlier this week.

Last month Saliba – currently on-loan at Marseille – was named in France’s international squad for the first time in his career as he made his debut against the Ivory Coast and played a full game versus South Africa.

However, speaking to RMC Sport, his club teammate Payet claimed Saliba was only selected by Didier Deschamps for the national team because ‘there were 14 injured behind him’ and that the 21-year-old was the last resort to bringing back Lillian Thuram.

Payet thinks Saliba was fortunate to be called up by Deschamps (Picture: RMC)

Saliba has now responded in kind to Payet following Marseille’s victory over PAOK in the Europa League on Thursday night where the former West Ham star scored in a 2-1 win.

Speaking about the midfielder, he said: ‘It’s been a long time (since he scored). At the moment he was only scoring penalties!’

Both Payet and Saliba have played a significant part in Marseille’s run to the Europa League quarter-finals this season.

Saliba was bought by Arsenal three years ago for a fee in the region of £25million but is yet to play a competitive match for the Gunners despite being highly rated by the club’s fans.

Since 2019, the Frenchman has been on-loan to St Etienne, Nice and Marseille and it remains to be seen whether Mikel Arteta plans to include Saliba in his plans for next season.

Last year, Saliba spoke of his disappointment not being able to break into Arsenal’s first-team.

He said: ‘I really, really, really didn’t think that I would be transferred for €30m and to think that I would arrive, where people were expecting a lot from me and the fans were excited about me, and you find yourself in the reserves, play zero, zero nothing in the Europa League or the league.’

The Gunners currently have three first choice centre-backs in Ben White, Gabriel and Rob Holding. Meanwhile Pablo Mari is out on-loan at Udinese.

MORE : Dimitri Payet mocks Arsenal’s William Saliba over his France call-up

MORE : ‘I can’t just be on the bench’ – William Saliba sends clear message to Mikel Arteta over Arsenal return

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