It seems to have taken the Arsenal star Francis Coquelin a little while to find the form that was so impressive for us in the second half of last season and the first half of this one, but when you consider that his game is based on work rate, energy and the timing of his ferocious tackles, I suppose we should not have been too surprised about that.
After his crazy second yellow against Tottenham, however, our defensive midfield warrior has really started to look the part again and his return to top form was highlighted by his fist pumping and chest thumping performance against Everton. Before the Frenchman picked up his knee injury he had been racking up some amazing stats which suggested that he was actually the best in the Premier League in his position and he was at it again at Goodison Park.
Metro reports that his 12 interceptions against the Toffees was the highest number seen by a player in an EPL game for a full three years! No wonder they couldn’t get their attacking game going. He was not just getting stuck in either, because the stats from the match on the Arsenal website show that only Ozil and Bellerin had more touches and Elneny was the only Gunner with a better passing accuracy.
The Gunners were certainly stronger before Coquelin was sidelined and they certainly look better now he is back and fully fit, so will this one injury be the thing that costs Arsenal the Premier League title?
Coquelins injury has not cost us the title. How Arsenal is being run in general costs us the title, every year. Blaming on injuries is pathetic
No Bob it doesn’t!
Coquelin Injury is just one of many excuses that will maybe cost us the title this season, Cazorlas maybe even more so! I like the look of the partnerships growing between Boss/Gabby & Coq/Elneny, those 4 can make a great Defensive unit imo… we lack the power on the left and Upfront, though Iwobi & Welbz is refreshing and a new dimension for the whole team to work off and will do until the end of the season, its all we have!
We need a shift in powers from top to bottom but starting with the team… Walcott (140k), Giroud (90k), Arteta (70k), Flame (65k), Rosicky (65k), Per (80k) and Debuchy (65k) all need sold or moved on, their wages frees up money for fee big boys to come in. Chambers, Ox(6mnth), W.Silva, Gnabry, Akpom(6mnth) and Hayden all need loaned out.
We need a RB, CB, DM, RWorLW & ST in the summer:
Aurier, can play CB too.. proper comp for Hector.
Van Dijk, Solid, not too dear & comp for Gab/Boss.
W.Carvalho, Young&powerful,comp for Coq/Elneny.
Mahrez, him&Alexis both wings.
Throw €60,000,000 for Aubameyang….
(This just my personal opinion of incoming plyrs)
We would have a deep and very strong squad as we will need it as Utd, City, Chelsea, Spurs & Liverpool will all have great squads with a great manager at the helm (Mourinho to Utd, Conte to Chelsea, Pep to City, Klopp at Liverpool & Poch at Spurs). Even Raneiri at Leicester could keep getting stronger but can see their players being picked off in the summer.
Kronke, Wenger and Ivan OUT
Usmanov, Koeman and Dein IN
Cech & Ospina
Bellerin, Jenko & AURIER
Boss, Gabriel & VAN DIJK
Nacho & Gibbs
Coquelin & W.CARVALHO
Elneny, Santi & Rambo
Ozil & Wilshere
Welbeck & AUBAMEYANG
Iwobi & MAHREZ
Alexis & Campbell
Also sell Wojech Scez as Martinez would be no3.
Zelalem stays at Rangers for another season as they get promoted to Championship. Toral needs a prem club on loan, maybe championship team coming up.
I can’t say more, it feels like you just read my mind.
Well if Wenger had signed a top DM like we were begging him to Coquelin would have got good cover. Wenger just needed to sign 2 more players: DM and a striker. However, he didn’t sign an outfielder until January
And that is what cost us the title. Not strengthening our back of midfield and attack.
I agree but april to september 2015 arsenal had to pay £30m in transfer fees due to clauses in earlier contracts. Arsenal actualy made an operating loss of £3.2m in this period. So last summer they had to balance the books so no money for new signings. We blame Wenger, its probably due to Kroenke not willing to release the money from reserves.
OT good result with manu beating manc. With ourselves, leicester and tottenham all wining we are no closer to winning the PL. But third place is more secure with manc losing and west ham drawing.
We have already achieved our first objective by reaching last 16 of CL. Second objective is to achieve top four finish ( preferably top 3 to guarantee CL next year) and that is a bit closer. Kroenke will regard this as a good weekend for Arsenal.
Sad but true … Manchester derby a pretty pathetic affair …low quality on both sides …then again we are a mere five points ahead of them which says a lot about our season…. Looks like Leicester spuds us and I hope west ham ( who are actually the team playing with most confidence at moment) ..would be funny to watch guardiola on Thursday night fball ..would serve city right for gloating over their little coup and disrespecting pellagrini ,,, we will need big investments over the summer to compete …wenger has blown his chance this season and for that must go
i think carzola’s injury seemed to cost us more, we havevnot been on track since… coq’s red card at white hart was painful, otherwise we are a few pts behind spurs w a game in hand. i think when you look at goal diff you see sours are the best team, at 32, a good indicator. we are at only 18 with 6 goals less this season. thus, harry kane is a differentiator vs our feature striker of the week, their defensevis also better in minimizing goals,
I would say when both Le coq and Santi carzorla were sidelined!
It was clear we needed a proven cover for le coq and we made our views known during the summer transfer window but everything as usual was rubbished and swept under the french carpet..any of our fans here who were desperate for wenger to prove the ‘doubters’ wrong shd know time is running out for your DEMIGOD. Most of us at least knew this was going to be the endgame.the spuds are matching on after todays win while leicester tightens their hold more than ever.excuses at arsenal are pathetic,laughable and routine.it’s increasingly repetitive,annoying and irritating!!!
It was when we lost Bergkamk.
@jonm. … How much did hamburger harry”s Co.take out for services rendered, we’d have broke even if they hadn’t(that’s a laugh for a start).
Looking at the EPL this season is too narrow, because next season thnings will change, Pep at Man City is a statement of thier European aspirations. They intend o take on Barca and Bayern etc. Everyone will need to step up. Even when Coq was playing our form wasn’t rock solid, and I’m afraid as I said ironically after the Barca game, my Spanish freinds who watched the game v Barca said we were not better than Villarreal, well Barca and Villarreal drew 2-2 today. We need to be better.
OT: ArsenOverT, is he banned.? Missing that advert..or he already sold all the banners.?!