Arsenal fans will be crossing our fingers and hoping that our French midfielder Francis Coquelin will have recovered from the minor knee injury that kept him out of the Capital One cup game this week in time to return to the starting line up when Arsenal travel to face Leicester City on Saturday.
If not, however, or when he does pick up an injury, a suspension or is simply rested by Arsene Wenger, the manager has a big decision to make about who to replace him with. Mikel Arteta would normally expect it to be him, but the club captain had an absolute shocker away to Dinamo Zagreb, and even though that was his first start in a long time it would have been very worrying for the boss.
Perhaps that is why Wenger went for both Arteta and Flamini against Tottenham and he must be glad he did. But did Flamini’s match winning performance catapult him above Arteta in the bosses mind? I think it may well have done because not only did Flamini score two good goals, he also made some big tackles and worked tirelessly to stop the home team over running our defence.
It was also the Frenchman that was doing the captain’s job of shouting orders and urging on the rest of the team when we were struggling. His passing was not too shabby either although his accuracy of over 77 percent was still five percent less than the Spaniard’s.
Who do you think is second to Coquelin in the Arsenal pecking order?
Honestly i would say “YES” to that!
I’m not sure for EPL, but for cup competitions, why not? Flamini proved that he’s still alive and kicking. Arteta has better control and passing that’s why he’s ahead Flamini, but Mat has better will and spirit. But TBH both of them aren’t close to Coquelin defensive ability.Somehow, I still hope we’ll land at less one CDM this January.
Not sure to be honest
Neither are good defensively anymore but Flamini scoring two goals makes him deserve to be ahead of Arteta
So for the time being I would start Flamini until Coquelin is available and see how that goes
But no matter what we think of Flamini, he was the reason we are still in the League Cup and not Spurs
His two goals were fantastic
i say YES.
be that position, defensive duty is the most priority,
No, he still can’t defend at all
At least Arteta can kind of defend.
both are not good enough…
they should be release together with Rosicky, Campbell, Giroud, Sanago and Wenger….
look how the standards have fallen….
King Klopp may head to Liverfool….
lets get him first..
time for a change….
I shall go for d two of them cos either of them is equal Coquellin skill these days. I wish him a quick recovery nd better comes back
How about an hybrid of the 2 lmaooooo…….Flamini’s aggressiveness and drive added to Arteta’s passing range and calm head…..to be frank its a disgrace we left with such paucity of option when we could ne talking Scherderlin, Vidal etc
Give Arteta some times on the competitive field of play to properly recovered his lost form. Then we’ll see the top Arteta once again as he was topped before he got injured in a CL game. I think Flamini was once written off but his sudden winner appearance at Spurs is now making us to have a 2nd thoughts. We will know more about Coquelin fitness to start at Leicester in the Boss’ press conference. If he is fit to start, I will like to see the Boss start the young Glen Kamara and Coquelin together if Kamara plays Arteta RDM position or Kamara and Flamini starts as RDM & LDM at the Gunners’ midfield anchor. And Arteta could come in to close the game in the last 15 minutes of the game if we are leading by 2 goals margin. Who knows, we might even get a penalty which he will convert.
YESSSS! flamini was better than arteta even without his goals! And with arteta it looks like he’s just roaming around.