David Ornstein believes William Saliba is in no rush to sign a new contract at Arsenal, preferring to take his time and see how things develop.

William Saliba’s return to Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side has been one of the primary positives of the start to the new season, but his contract situation continues to cause some concern.

Saliba spent the first three years of his contract either out on loan or with the Arsenal youth teams. He spent a year with St. Etienne, half a year with OGC Nice, and another year with Marseille before eventually breaking into the Arsenal starting lineup.

As a result, even though Saliba might feel like a new signing, he’s got less than two years left on the five-year deal he signed when he joined.

Arsenal will be keen to extend that contract, but David Ornstein suggests Saliba is in no hurry.

“The situation as I understand is that he’s not in a rush to come and sit down (to sign a new contract),” Ornstein said. “He’s focusing on his football. What does he need to rush for?

“Let’s see how things go and let’s see if this is going to be a consistent run in the team because we’re still relatively early into the season.

“The power is all in Saliba’s hands in this situation.”

With his performances so far this season, Arsenal will want to do a deal as soon as possible. But it’s true that out of three years and two months of football, Saliba has only spent those two months in the Arsenal team.

As it stands, the sample size for Saliba’s inclusion isn’t very large, even if it is the most recent data we have. If he’s committing his long-term future, he’ll want to be sure he’s not about to drop back to the bench when that happens.