Can Koscielny and the Arsenal defence win us the title?

The Arsenal and France centre back Laurent Koscielny has come a long way in his career. A bit like Jamie Vardy, the player he will be trying to stop from scoring on Sunday, Koscielny began his football life in the lower leagues but is now widely regarded as one of the best in the Premier League.

He is certainly the main man in the Arsenal back four, which is why the fans have nicknamed the Frenchman the Boss. And he reckons that the whole defensive side of the Arsenal team are in great form, as he told Arsenal Player after the Bournemouth match made it three clean sheets from four games and his central defensive pairing with Gabriel showed more signs of improvement.

The Frenchman said, “It is good, we have three clean sheets in four games and we have to stay focused like this.

“All the team played well and did their job and if you want to win games you need to score too. We kept a clean sheet and we need to be more confident and defend together but we will be happy with this.

“It was important to win because we needed to stay high up the table with Leicester, Tottenham and Manchester City. We didn’t play well during January and we didn’t win a lot of points. We needed to start a good run with this game and we stayed strong at the back, and scored two goals with our first two opportunities.

“We had three games without scoring so it was important for our players.

“You know Gabby, he is a very good player. He likes his duels and he can play with the ball and passes.

“He played very well but the whole back four played well because we stayed together. Sometimes in your game you have a difficult situation but we stayed focused on our job.”

But is the Arsenal defence really good enough to give us a platform to win the title from? Helpfully enough Sky Sports have compiled a stats report comparing the defensive strengths of the four clubs fighting for the EPL trophy.

According to these numbers, Arsenal may not have the very best defence in the league but it is right up there and with the brilliant Petr Cech behind them, is there any reason to believe we are not good enough to go all the way this time?

Tags Gabriel Koscielny

12 Comments

  1. It’s not the defence we should be worried about after all they won us the most points in England last yea. What’s worrying is the severe lack of midfield and striking options

  2. Two gunners in my hood were discussing bout our the matchday encounter with the foxes… Here’s what their recorded conversation Looked like

    Stanley: xup Dan

    Dan: Hey bru…howdy?

    Stanley : i’ve been thinking…..super sunday….what’s ur pick?

    Dan: (Lost concentration) who are we meeting?

    Stanley: the foxes

    Dan : (back to earth) the foxes?…. Nooo guy ….No way are we winning that…. I’d rather bet on us scoring

    Stanley: calmdown bro…. We’d beat em….. We did it in the 1st leg….infact we were the only guys to hit em hard

    Dan: (still pondering) instead won’t bet on it…. Can have em ruining my accumulator

    SoopaAeon: Hahahaha… Omg Danny… U’re still being haunted by olympiacos???

    Stanley: Hahaha…. Never say die

    {That’s how much faith some have on Arsenal…..especially when they are being counted on to do the job, they bottle it up}

    Don’t worry DanieL……sunday’d be different…..we are beating some team blue-black on the day *winks*

  3. Yes the defense will
    be crucial in our tilt
    at the title especially
    when Coq is fully fit.
    Even the “B” players like Gibbs Chambers
    Mertz and Elneny will be ok.
    Try and keep Flamini and Arteta out of it though.
    We miss Santi but Ramsey is filling ok.
    Ozil Sanchez and Giroud are the guts of our attack.
    Then we have the cameo crew Ox Walcott Campbell
    Iwobi and now maybe Wellbeck who in general are weak
    but on occasion contribute the odd goal or assist.
    After 40 weeks out with injury Wilshere always
    seems to come right just in time to jump the
    queue into the Wembly semi finals side.
    Then like Walcott Wellbeck Ox Campbell Iwobi Rosicky
    Chambers Gibbs Arteta Flamini and Debuchy will
    pick up his “hard earned” EPL winners medal.
    Maybe even Sanogo will “Medal”.

  4. With the back 6 of;
    Cech
    Hect Gab Boss Nacho
    Le Coq

    Im very confident of keeping a few more clean sheets before the seasons out, its our STs who should be winning us this league… they miss far too much and we are soft in the RW and ST position. Welbz is cover for Sanchez so LW is OK.
    Giroud – Is good but not great, misses to many!
    Walc – Isnt good enough, bench player, cover!
    Ox – Has big potential but needs a loan, sloppy!
    JC – HUGE potential, needs more time, 1st season

    Not good enough imo. RW&ST have to step up now or be replaced in the summer. Giroud&Walcott esp.

  5. Defence is a whole team effort, attack too especially if you are an Arsenal player.
    Cech will throw out to Bellerin, dummy pass our CBs before firing it over to Monsieur Monreal who plays it to Rambo then Rambo gives to Coquelin then ball goes to Oxlade Oxlade to Giroud flicks it over to Ozil who in turn plays it through to Alexis before Alexis goes bursting the net open ..Goal! Goal!! Goooal! Final game of the season Arsenal the Champions, its been a long wait but so worth it just look at the relief from the crowd never mind the crowd Jamie look at the players Iv’e seen them so pumped look what it means to them all. Well there you have it folks Arsenal are this seasons premier league title winners ..till next time.

  6. Defense is important of course…but even if we get clean sheet that means just one point for the game if do not score, so….
    At the end we all know that the most of the time the attack is the best defense.

  7. Surprised Gabriel been played so little, but in his recent games has made a few errors – and I understand why Wenfer didn’t-

    But now Wenger is starting to play him instead of Mertesacker – I can only think of two reasons-

    He genuinely thinks his better than Meet – or (and I think this much more likely) he wants to play Gab against Leicester because of their pace. That makes total sense – and played Gab against Bournmouth as a preparation game against a team we should beat

    Makes sense to me. With a bit more time, and focus, think Gab will become a great CB – but he’s not full deal yet

    1. Don’t see the point to play him then when he’s not full deal yet.
      Its not like he became defender 6 months ago…he should know what his job is by now.
      Instead , hes been running pointless in panic like headless chicken around the box.
      Also his bad positioning behind the player on the breaks is a nasty habit.

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