Manager Josh Kroenke has revealed how Arsenal were looking for Virgil van Dijk during the 2019 summer slump, and revealed that former academy director Per Mertesacker was behind the move for William Saliba.
Arsenal co-chairman Josh Kroenke and William Saliba celebrate winning the Premier League (Image: 2026 Visionhaus)
William Saliba was at the heart of Arsenal’s mission to win their first title in 22 years by “taking a step back to move forward”.
Arsenal co-chairman Josh Kroenke has revealed how the club decided to move in a different direction shortly after losing to Chelsea in the 2019 Europa League final and the sacking of manager Unai Emery six months later.
It was a real low point for the club, but Kroenke recalled a conversation with former Arsenal defender and academy director Mertesacker that inspired him to take the club down a different path.
Kroenke said: “It’s funny to remember this. I had a great conversation with Per Mertesacker. After the final in Baku, I commented about Virgil van Dijk, who joined Liverpool a year or two ago.
“I said, ‘How can we get one of these into our system?’ He said, ‘Well, unless you have £100 million, you better not think about him.'” Who is the youngest defender in Europe? Without hesitation, he turned around and said William Saliba.
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“There were already discussions that summer about building for the future. There were so many moving parts at the time…”
Arsenal signed Saliba that summer, but he was actually loaned out for three years until Mikel Arteta installed him as a key part of his defence, with the French centre-half becoming one of the best players in the world.
Kroenke said: “I’m not involved in the transfers. I think my job is to understand the ‘why’ on the front end, so if something goes wrong, the back end is responsible.”
“So I don’t want to take credit for transfers or anything like that, but I do want to be around and understand why we pursue certain things.
William Saliba has made a huge contribution to Arsenal’s transformation (Image: 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Plc)
“William’s story is interesting and Mikel and I have laughed about it now because I didn’t tell him this until much later, but when we bought William he was going to be on loan for two seasons.
“Then by the time William came back to us we had transitioned to Mikel. There was some thought on the front end about William coming back into our team, but it was covered very well. We want you guys to fill in all those blanks.”
“But I was sitting there in America laughing and saying, ‘Please let this kid exercise!'” I wasn’t going to say, “Hey, someone told me a few years ago that this kid was going to be great!”
“What am I going to do? No, they’ll do it themselves. They decide.”
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