Arsenal have been a bit short on defenders so far this season, with Monreal, Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles, Sokratis and Mavropanos all having time in the treatment room along with captain Koscielny. Thankfully Monreal recovered reasonably quickly and Kolasinac is now back and Maitland-Niles has also returned to training this week. Sokratis should be able to play next week, Mavropanos is expected back to training in a couple of weeks, and the latest is that Koscielny has also rejoined the squad, but the boss says it will still be some time before he can play. Emery told Arsenal.com: “He is very important for us because he is our captain,” he said. “He is starting this week to do some training with us together and it is very, very good news for us.
“I think we need also to give confidence to him, to be close with us, because it was a big injury. But now he is getting better, he is training with us in some things and this is very positive.
”We need to be calm with him. Calm because we need after more than a month, [him to] feel first he is doing some things well, and then when he can play and do games in the training, we can think he is OK to play.”
With all our other defenders coming back there is no need to rush Koscielny back onto the field, but if he available for the second half of the season and used sparingly he could play a big part as we hopefully close in on winning some titles, as will all our other defenders! 🙂
O