Shifting the blame on to Unai Emery over Laurent Koscielny will not work.
It was always going to happen. Someone was always going to jump on the bandwagon and have a pop at Emery over Koscielny and that honour goes to James McNicholas at The Athletic.
Two reasons have been given. One, the delay in naming him as captain and two, mismanaging his injuries at the end of last season.
I could analyse the hell out of all that because it simply does not make sense to me. I do not feel the chronology of the events match up. He went on strike in July and that tells me his mind was well and truly made up before that.
No mention of the captaincy was mentioned by Koscielny when he told L’Equipe the following, as cited by the Daily Star,
“A Premier League season is very long. It requires a lot physically and mentally. I didn’t feel I could play 40-50 matches and I didn’t want to end my career with injuries. I’ve gone down a level, but to take more pleasure,” he told the French publication.
“Either I finished there or changed clubs. With my family, we felt it was time.
“Everything was in my thinking: football, my physical state, my wife, my children, the daily life we could have.
“I can only say that I left with my head held high. All of those I worked with for nine years… everyone respected my decision to return home with my family.”
Truth is I simply do not believe any of this latest stuff and it is the timing of the revelations that I find suspicious.
All this is happening now with the blame being shifted onto Emery because of the pressure on the Spaniard.
This could have come out within days of Koscielny leaving the club but no, a moment is chosen right when the pressure on Emery is at its maximum.
Think about it, he was lambasted by the fans for going on strike and for the shirt incident. Surely that would have been the perfect time to say hang on a minute I was treated very badly over my injuries and so on.
But nope, it gets revealed now.
I am not normally a cynic but come on.
It’s true due to the weak manager we have everybody is struggling because of unia Emery. He has to go asap
Koscielny didn’t have to come out to say all these things because it’s been in the media seasons ago that he wanted to finish his career in the French league. He isn’t trying to make it look as if it was someone’s fault. He’s simply telling the truth which was clear to see all along.
Why would a player who has always been a true professional and signed contracts without problems unlike many others simply go on strike if it wasn’t something serious? I’m very confident the club knew he wanted to leave after 18/19 season. The club couldn’t get in new defenders so intentionally slapped a £10m fee on him so that it put the club in a win-win situation. Look no further than his replacement to actually know if we wanted him to leave. I just don’t get why all the blame is being given to go even if his act can’t be justified
Really Kev? You actually believe all this? Each to their own but I am just not buying it. The timing stinks and that alone makes me doubt all this. Bottom line for me is he wanted to go home and used every trick to make it happen. I judge people on their character and he has been judged.
who made you a judge?
Me, because I wrote it. Don’t like it? Then send me in an article and you be the judge at admin@justarsenal.com otherwise I will continue to be the judge.
Wheres my post Admin about the story being tripe.
It has been deleted. I never deleted it but 100% agree with its deletion. Why just condemn a post with rudeness? At least make an attempt to explain why you did not like it. So easy just to be rude, isn’t it? Tell you what, why don’t you write something and send it to me at admin@justarsenal.com and get a taste of the feedback we get?
Sorry Admin but i just thought the story about kos and blaming Emery was baseless and total rubbish. Just an opinion.
Why? see, that’s the problem. Someone takes time to write an article and put a viewpoint across and then you just dismiss it without one word of why it was total rubbish. You call that an opinion? I would suggest an opinion is a 300-word article explaining a position and not one rude line.
At the end of the day he was our best defender and captain, the fact he left can only be Emerys fault it is his job to manage the players after all
It is snowing in Norway, bloody Emery, it’s his fault.
All these points to Emery’s terrible man management skills,, fabregas down tools trying to force his way out buh Wenger never wanted the fans to turn against him,he named a non existent injury as the reason fabregas didn’t play, we v had several other issues that were well managed, koscienly remains one of the most committed players that have ever played for arsenal,he was one of the most outstanding players in the team yet one of the lowly paid players,he never held the club to ransom denading higher wages,he has always played for the badge,I think if properly managed ,it could have bn a different story all together,Emery’s man management ability have to be questioned,Wenger could have managed xhaka’s issues better than the way it has bn managed,I never lost my respect for koscienly,though he could have held on more buh such is life,in fact on and off the pitch emery has bn a close disaster,he deserve to leave our club!