Yet another clean sheet for Arsenal away to Stoke City kept up our very impressive defensive record in the Premier League this season and extended the record breaking figures of our new number one. Quite rightly a lot of the credit for this is going to Petr Cech, not just for his shot stopping ability but for his calmness and presence and the confidence that gives to the Arsenal defence.
Another huge part of that defensive strength and solidity, however, comes from the player that many pundits and football experts have hailed as the best centre back in England at the minute, our France international star Laurent Koscielny.
The boss is in the form of his life and at 30-years old he has plenty of time at the top for a defender. But there have been a number of Arsenal transfer rumours linking the Frenchman with a move to some of the biggest clubs around Europe and that would be a massive blow to Arsenal.
Arsenal fans should be relieved and delighted, then, that although Koscielny himself has confirmed this transfer interest in him, Metro has reported, he also went on to reveal that he has no intention of leaving anytime in the foreseeable future.
The Arsenal star said, “For the moment, I have no reason to go and look elsewhere.
“There were teams interested in me but I always asked myself if it was worth taking the risk.
“I’ve seen a good few players leave for a bigger club and find themselves on the substitutes’ bench.
“At the start of my career I was often on the bench. I hated it. I said to myself — ‘never again’.
“I have everything I need here to blossom.”
The way Koscielny has developed into one of the best defenders around the only thing that will see him out of the Arsenal team are fitness concerns so hopefully he will be our defensive lynchpin for many years to come.
I like Koz, but he was pretty poor yesterday. Quite a few misplaced passes, and a little shaky overall, especially in the first half. Having said that, he’s one of the best defenders in the league at the moment, and I love his passion for the game and the club. The guy is smart too. He knows if he’s loyal to the manager, team, and the fans, he can stay for as long as he can play, and retire a legend. Unlike such rats as RvP, Cole, Nasri, etc… btw, where are they now? Oh, who the F cares!!!
Didn’t realise he was already 30 – need to start search for his replacement now – will take 3 years to find one as good as Kolcheny
We have a few that could potentially take his place in the coming years. Gabriel (who I suspect will replace Mertesacker next season), Chambers, Isaac Hayden (assuming Arsene doesn’t sell him to Hull city) and Stefan O’Connor are all true CBs. Jenkinson could also become a central defender as he has the size and quickness required, however he would need a ton of experience.
What I really like about him is his calm nature, a true professional,he doesn’t talk too much unlike some underperfoming players in the team…
I hope he stays at the top of his game for another 4years
Koscielny = world class and future legend, we all know Bayern were interested in him but he decided to stay. That’s what we want to see from our players.
gab can do the koss job who we need is a BFG type CB with more pace like laporte or stones.
but mby just mby our boy chambers could do it if he pulls his socks up
Koscielny has developed into one of the best central defenders in Europe over the last few years, but are his best years being wasted because of Wenger?
I still find it unexplainable that Mertesacker is Koscielny’s first choice partner, especially when the answer to our problems is probably already within our squad via Gabriel. It’s not as if Mertesacker is a terrible defender, because he isn’t. My issue is that he doesn’t fit into our system of play by a country mile because of his ridiculous lack of pace.
We almost always play with a high defensive line with the full-backs pushed right up with the central defenders split, and for years Wenger hasn’t even bothered with a DM. Only the last year with finally had a DM. This all allows the opposition it hit us on the counter-attack by isolating the CB’s and by hitting long balls into the huge space in between the GK and defensive line. Great example was the stuffing we took at Southampton. So having a CB that can’t even run is just suicide! You need mobile, quick defenders to get the best out of this system of play, and a top DM of course, which we finally have!
Gabriel has the attributes we’re looking for. Very quick, strong, aggressive, great age as well. Yes he’s still a little rough round the edges, but he can only improve with regular games…which he isn’t getting.
The truth is that Wenger doesn’t pick his teams based on form, if a player is suited to our style of play or even if a player’s in their natural position. So the only hope of seeing Gabriel playing regularly is if Mertesacker or Koscielny is injured mid/long-term. I wouldn’t wish serious injury on anyone, but I wouldn’t mind a minor injury that might keep Mertesacker out for at least a month or so, thus finally giving Gabriel a chance.
I think Gabriel will be phenomenal for us in years to come but if you think Wenger and Bould (who knows a bit about CB play) are deliberately sabotaging our team by blindly preferring PM then that is one hell of a conspiracy theory. PM just happens to be the “go to” guy when things go wrong for us and he doesn’t deserve some of the stick he gets. You listen to anyone who has played CB or coached defenders and they will give a coherent and reasoned explanation as to how CB chemistry as a pair is nearly always more important than individual attributes. But you listen to the console generation and they will aggregate stats and ratings and form an opinion. One CB generally goes to the ball and one generally concentrates on positional play – two instinctive, aggressive ball winners is not as intuitively clever as some may think. Anyone remember Kos and TV5 played as a pair? Simple truth is PM is not in the team to cover the quick breakaway – if he happens to be our last player covering a counter attack then you can be sure something has gone badly wrong further up the pitch. John Terry would probably dead-heat PM in a 40m dash but never heard a word last season about his lack of pace. Bobby Moore played in slow motion. Puyol and Baresi had no pace.
And don’t conveniently ignore Chelsea(a), Olympiakos(h), Zagreb(a) and Bayern(a) and pretend Gabriel is the ready packaged solutions to all our CB “woes” (problems that are wildly exaggerated and out of all proportion to the actual perceived problem – PM/LK, even with the blips, have been the most consistent and successful CB pairing in the PL for the past couple of seasons. And the media muppets are wilfully ignorant on this – someone tell me the last televised match where one of the numpties doesn’t reach for the stock, lazy, glib comment about “Mertesacker’s lack of pace will be a problem and x and y and z will be licking their lips….blah, blah” – and then nothing happens.
and whilst I’m on CBs and the British media – the “£40M English wonderkid” Stones, whilst I rate him for the future, has made more disastrous decisions/errors in his last 3 games than PM probably has in his AFC career – but the media draw a veil over that.
And, despite what I have said – I would definitely play Gabriel against Barcelona, horse for courses, that will be backs to wall with the 3 trickiest forwards on the planet. The ball won’t go above waist height and Gab has some decent La Liga form against Messi.
Concerning looking for his replacements, I think Gabriel will be his replacement as they are almost similar, Chambers to replace Mert..but in case am wrong, I will like to Julio Pleguezelo(not sure about that spelling)to be given chance..
My reason for that is ridiculous which is Julio is spanish and was from Barcelona too so am hoping he will do a Bellerin as Spanish players are very intelligent
kos will go to fight for the ball while mert is ready at behind. i think gab need to improve on his telepathic.
@zulazlykamari
The problem with that is, teams expect it and target Mert with a pacy forward while Kos is occupied. It never fails…
“It never fails….” Surely not an exaggeration?
Good on you “bosscielny”! Spoken like the true red blooded gunner we know you are! Coyg!
OMG Walcott talking about winning the title like he has actually played a role in our form SMH. The guy talks too much but rarely shows up on the pitch, please bench him Wenger so we no longer have to jinx ourselves with over confidence.
walcott is all tllk.
with having flamini and striker ramsey in the middle, the defence is very exposed. Wenger you noticing that we are about to lose it or not
MD please just go we don’t need the unrest in our team. Fact a young player at right back is now close to being the best in the world in that position. Only thing is keeping hands of him
i think wenger should give ramsey ago at striker whats the worse that could happen i think he would be decent
it,s not that le koss played badly ,he misplaced a lot of passes and the reason is that he missed ozil,just check every time he bombs forwards the number of times he passes it to ozil i guess 9/10 and we do score a lot from those plays!!
Let’s get him a PL trophy this summer