William Saliba 'open to £90,000-a-month salary cut to seal Arsenal exit and move to Saint-Etienne'

William Saliba is willing to take a significant wage cut in order to secure a move away from Arsenal this January, according to reports.

The 19-year-old defender joined the Gunners for £27million in the summer of 2019 but has yet to make an appearance for Mikel Arteta's squad since his loan deal from Saint-Etienne expired last summer.

Saliba was left out of the Gunners' 25-man Europa League squad at the start of the season and is yet to make his domestic debut in English football and the teenage centre-back is expected to leave on loan this month.

And according to French news outlet Canal Plus, Saliba is open to moving down to a £90,000-a-month salary in order to seal a move to former club Saint-Etienne.

Saliba, who is believed to earn around £160,000-a-month in his current Arsenal contract, came through the Saint-Etienne youth ranks and made his first-team debut in September 2018.

A breakthrough season in French football during the 2018-19 campaign, which saw the defender play 16 times in Ligue 1, caught the eye of Arsenal who signed the centre-back while Unai Emery was managing the club.

Saliba was loaned back to Saint-Etienne as part of Arsenal's agreement to sign the player but an injury hit season saw him feature just a dozen times in the French top-flight last term.

Arteta used the defender in a couple of pre-season games this season but the centre-back is yet to play a professional match for the Gunners.

Saliba has not been used even though Arteta's Arsenal suffered several injury woes during the 2020 calendar year.

Pablo Mari, Shkodran Mustafi and Callum Chambers picked up long-term injuries last season and have only just returned, while David Luiz has also missed some games this term.

Sokratis Papastathopoulous has been exiled by Arteta as well having not been named in Arsenal's 25-man squad for both the Premier League and the Europa League.

Saliba jokingly claimed on social media last month that he is 'locked up' at Arsenal in the same way Matteo Guendouzi was before his exile and subsequent loan move to Hertha Berlin.

The defender was involved in an Instagram conversation with Guendouzi and Nicolas Pepe when he made the claim, with the on-loan midfielder saying the pair are 'together' in their north London struggle.

Guendouzi was dropped from the Arsenal matchday squad by Arteta last season after he grabbed Brighton's Neal Maupay by the throat after the Gunners were beaten by the south coast club in March.

Saliba also told striker Alexandre Lacazette in a video posted on Arsenal's social media channels that he 'does not count' as a Gunners player as he has not made an appearance yet.