William Saliba won’t play for Saint-Etienne in the Coupe de France final against Paris Saint-Germain, according to reports.

Saint-Etienne news site Peuple Vert report that the club have failed to find an agreement in negotiations with Arsenal over William Saliba. As a result, the player will not play in the Coupe de France final.

This is further to a similar report from Sainte Inside, who wrote that according to their information, Saliba is out of the match against Paris Saint-Germain. Club sources were pessimistic even before that update, but it seems they’re past the point of no return now.

We still have no official confirmation on the situation from Arsenal or Saint-Etienne. Since their very public falling-out at the end of June, neither have made any comments on the matter.

In fact, none of the English outlets are weighing in. They’re all seemingly staying quiet and waiting for news like the rest of us.

The sticking points were Arsenal’s insistence that Saint-Etienne remove the €2.5m bonus clause in Saliba’s contract, as well as the Gunners’ desire for the centre-back to follow a specific training regime leading up to the game.

You can definitely understand why Arsenal didn’t want to pay Saint-Etienne for them to use their player. Given Saliba’s injury problems this season, the individual training programme also made sense. But the Ligue 1 club seemingly wouldn’t bow to those demands.