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.