Background: speaking to Get French Football News, France NT manager Didier Deschamps did Saliba dirty, saying the following:

He is having a good season, but he also does things that I don’t like so much. For France, he has limited game time, but when he plays, that hasn’t necessarily gone well.

Gosh, Didi—if that is in fact your nickname—it’s almost as if each half of your statement reinforces the other in some kind of tautological Möbius strip.

Saliba is perhaps among the best CBs in the Prem. He might be in the conversation for the best CBs in Europe, but I don’t want to get breathless. He’s regularly referred to as a Rolls Royce. He’s part of a defensive unit that’s conceded just 24 Prem goals. There was a point during his first season when our Saliba chant lasted longer than our opponent’s first-half possession. As a starter for Prem-leading Arsenal, he is an absolute rock, the foundation on which our current success depends.

To borrow your words, Monsieur Deschamps, he has limited game time. That’s only a part of the problem. Compounding that problem is whom he plays alongside. With the Arsenal, he can count on his partnership with Magalhães as well as the reliability of others such as White, Raya, Rice, and Jorginho. You, Didier have relegated that Rolls Royce of a CB to Upamecano, the French equivalent to Harry Maguire (Upamaguiro? Eh…). What’s worse, you’re pairing him with backbenchers like Clauss, Badiashile, Mendy, Guendouzi, and Fofana. Start him with the likese of Carnavinga and Tchouaméni and you might just see a very different player. Of ocurse, he’s going to look uncertain and tentative when he’s unsure of whether he can rely on those around him to play up to his standards.

Then again, though, you already admitted this, mon ami. You’re throwing him under the bus, if we’re being honest, because you’re throwing him on alongside a bunch of players who never play together and then criticizing him for failing to live up to your Platonic ideal of how a CB should play. Give him some training time with the starters and a place among them in your next match against Chile on Tuesday.

Update: you’ve named a heavily rotated side against Chile, one that includes Saliba alongside some first-teamers such as Konaté and the aforementioned Tchouaméni and Camavinga—but one that also includes the also-aforementioned Clauss, Fofana, and Guendouzi. How very Solomonic of you. Put another way, you might be seen as wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. If Saliba performs well, you can claim to have performed a managerial masterclass. If he struggles, you can claim that your original criticisms were right all along. A slow, appreciative if not entirely sincere golf-clap to you sir.

In the end, if Saliba gets enough minutes to maintain his momentum from this international break into our visit to the Etihad on Sunday, I’ll cheerfully retract all of my snark. Hell, if he scores and we win, I’ll print out this column and eat it. Literally.

Looked at another way, maybe Saliba will follow in Ben White’s footsteps; namely, he’ll read the writing on the wall (that would refer to the public and unprofessional criticism you’ve leveled) and decide to deprive the natiional team of his services. It certainly hasn’t hurt White’s club performance any. Merci, monsieur. Merci, indeed.