William Saliba will now return to Arsenal after the cancellation of Ligue 1, but he can’t play for Arsenal this season, according to reports.

As we covered previously, William Saliba will return to Arsenal following the recent early conclusion of the Ligue 1 season. At the time, it wasn’t entirely clear whether he could feature for the Gunners post-July 1st, but the suggestion now is that he can’t.

Arsenal fans were holding out hope based on the fact Saliba’s loan contract expires at the end of June and he is already registered in this season’s Premier League squad. You can name as many u21s as you want, so there was no reason not to include him.

Unfortunately, Raul Sanllehi explained in a recent meeting with the AST that Saliba can’t play this season. Football.London also confirm he can only train with his teammates until the new campaign.

That’s not exactly surprising. The simplest solution to the current contract nightmare is just to ban any new additions to the squads available to each team at the start of February.

That way it disincentivises players from leaving one Premier League club for another, and prevents certain teams from heavily benefitting from new additions whilst others can’t. It’s just a shame Saliba will miss out on a few more months of football.