Arsenal vs Dundalk: Mikel Arteta sorry to have left William Saliba out of Europa League squad

William Saliba has yet to make his Arsenal debut and is not a part of their Europa league squad. Arsenal have four central defenders missing ahead of their European clash with Irish side Dundalk on Thursday night.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said it hurt him to leave defender William Saliba out of his Europa League squad, a decision that looks to have backfired with the club face mounting injury problems at the centre back position.

Saliba and Sokratis Papastathopoulos were not registered for the competition, and with Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Pablo Mari and David Luiz all injured Arteta is left with Shkodran Mustafi and Gabriel Magalhaes as his only centre backs for Thursday's match against Irish side Dundalk.

"I feel really bad for William Saliba," Arteta told reporters.

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"Because we had so many central defenders, we decided to leave him out of the squad, which was really hurtful for me to do."

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Saliba spent last season on loan at St Etienne. Arteta says the French teenager is making steady progress in training.

"He's feeling a lot more confident around the place, his language is improving and he's starting to understand much better what we're doing physically," he added.

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