Granit Xhaka believes we should forget William Saliba’s own goal because the defender is a proper leader with a lot of quality.

William Saliba scored an own goal against Leicester City in his second game for the club last weekend, having won the Man of the Match award in his first appearance away to Crystal Palace.

Arsenal managed to win both games, so the own goal didn’t mean much more than a slightly inferior goal difference, and Granit Xhaka thinks we should focus on the rest of Saliba’s Premier League minutes so far.

“People only see the own goal but maybe, hopefully, they’ll see what a game he had,” Xhaka said. “This guy is 21. I think in his first game in the Premier League for Arsenal he was unbelievable.

“You can see how…he looks like he is 30. He has discipline and big character. He is not so loud, but he is a proper leader in my eyes.

“You can see he is amazing. He has a lot of quality and yeah, we forget the own goal because for 90 minutes he had a great, great game.”

The response from everyone in the stadium was certainly encouraging.

The Arsenal players looked to lift their teammate, with Aaron Ramsdale quickly jumping up to console and re-motivate Saliba in the immediate aftermath, and the fans were just as impressive.

As Saliba got on the ball for the first time after the goal, the supporters broke into applause, which they repeated on his next couple of touches.

Chants of “Oh, William Saliba” rang out in the Clock End, as the fans made it clear they were on his side.

Young defenders will always have ups and downs throughout the season, and Saliba’s Man of the Match display a week earlier shows that the quality is there. The consistency will come.