The injury to William Saliba sustained during the 2017–18 season, according to Arsenal player Gabriel Jesus, prevented his team from winning the Premier League.

The majority of the season, the Gunners were fantastic. For the first two-thirds of the campaign, they held the top spot, and at one time it appeared as though they might win the championship.

However, Manchester City went on a remarkable run and won the championship by one point over Arsenal. Jesus discussed what transpired throughout the previous season when appearing on The Denilson Show.

The Brazilian hailed Arsenal for coping when he was out injured but admitted that they leaked way too many goals in Saliba’s absence in the last few months of the season.

He said: “When he (Saliba) plays, we concede few goals, when he doesn’t play, the number (goals conceded) increases.

“When I got injured, Eddie replaced me very well. Then we signed Leo (Trossard). We kept the pace. But when Saliba got injured, it was complicated.

“The other defenders are good, but we were playing in a certain way. Look at the stats we concede a lot less with him”

The Frenchman, now 22, played his first-ever Premier League game on the opening day of last season. He made it look easy and quickly became one of the best defenders in the country.

When Saliba started, Arsenal looked rock solid in defence, and the way he played out from the back immensely helped their transitional play as well.

Once he suffered a season-ending injury, Arsenal began to struggle, and Manchester City took complete advantage of the situation and won the title.