William Saliba has not ruled out extending his loan spell at Nice.
The 19-year-old is spending the second half of the season with the Ligue 1 outfit after being limited to U23 appearances with Arsenal following his return from a loan spell at former club Saint-Etienne last summer.
Saliba made his debut for Nice in their 2-0 defeat against Brest earlier in the week, his first 90 minutes of competitive first-team football this season.
In a deal designed to get the centre-back playing regularly, the prospect of the Frenchman not returning to the Emirates Stadium at the end of the campaign has been raised.
When asked about potentially staying at the Allianz Arena, Saliba had an interesting response.
"I have signed a 6 month contract, after these 6 months we will see what happens," he said at his official unveiling to the press, via GFFN. "But for now I have signed for 6 months, I am going to give my all, and then we will see."
Saliba also explained why he opted to join Nice.
"Nice was certainly my top choice. Because it is a good club that I have liked for a long time," he added. "It is a club that fights at the top of the table, that fights to be in European competition.
"It is a club with ambition, that has a good style of play, style of possession. As for St Etienne, that is my home, and my comfort zone. I wanted to leave my comfort zone to come to Nice, a club I have never played for.
"I am sure it is the best choice.
"I arrived on Monday, things happened quite quickly I had one training session, today is my second training session. Nice is not in the place that it should be, but each club has its own difficult moments.
"We are going to try and quickly get back to where we should be."
With that said, Arteta has already revealed that he expects to have Saliba back in north London for the start of next season.
"He will come back for pre-season and he will be with us," said the Spaniard in his pre-Newcastle United press conference.
"Hopefully he will come back after playing a number of games and his performance raising and his development progressing in the right way. That’s why we made that decision."
