Laurent Koscielny: Page 48 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Laurent Koscielny

Biggus

banduan wrote:
Let's not forget he still had his fits of Senderosity earlier this season.

Now he's just immense. What goal that was too!

He was always a high risk high return defender, with experience he will learn that he doesn't have to dive in and with better reading of the game he can hopefully avoid those catastrophes.
As I said with Mertesakers experience and Koscielny's athleticism we have a good central defensive partnership.

Burnwinter

I don't know what you guys are on about - Koscielny's error rate's already way down, certainly it's no higher than that of most other well-regarded defenders.

Or Mertesacker with all of his [insert list of plausible sounding but ultimately spurious qualities of age, guile and experience] for that matter.

Biggus

What are we on about?
How many balls has he gone for that he should have just held his ground but ended up being red cards fuck ups or sliced into our net?
He's cut them out by just being a bit more conservative and he's a much better defender because of it.

Burnwinter

You're saying he "will learn" to make fewer mistakes. He already has cut them out to a large extent.

He and Mertesacker (widely praised for his experience) have both had one red this season, Kos for pulling Dzeko down in the early stages of our home game against City, and Mert for a clumsy tackle on Long against West Brom.

That's down from four in both preceding seasons and I'd say it's more than partly due to less recovery defending.

Mello

Kos doesn't make mistakes when he gets a run in the team.

Biggus

Burnwinter wrote:
That's down from four in both preceding seasons and I'd say it's more than partly due to less recovery defending.

Oh yes I agree, hopefully he's maturing into a great Arsenal defender.

yuv

Agree with Melo, and more: it's not just that he doesn't have brain farts when he plays regularly - he doesn't even make wrong judgements in high risk calls, and he makes them very frequently.
Think of all his last ditch dives in the box, getting the ball from the player about to pull the trigger. Think feet above striker's head in awesome kung-fu kicks (Wigan). Not many defenders try those high risk moves, and he gets away with them.

And when will this awful title be changed?

Clrnc

People don't realise that for all of Mert's fault, he fits our defence pairing to perfection. He is more passive, his positioning is top notch and he lets Koscielny be the pro-active one.

He also holds the defence and shows leadership everytime. Its really no coincidence why it is always Mert +1. Individually Koscielny might be 3 times the player Mert is, but this is a team game and Mert is crucial to our defence holding.

Patters

I just don't see it tbh. If Vermaelen had the game Mertesacker did yesterday (which was a par game for him when not up against attackers from Wigan or Reading etc.) then we'd be calling it a shambolic attempt at defending. BUT it is hard to argue with 5 clean sheets in 10 games - and if we have a settled defence that is getting clean sheets then that's all that matters I suppose.

Klaus

Mertesacker is covered by the same kind of statistics that made Djourou and Senderos look great to certain people in the past. Our record has more to do with how we've shaped up as a team - Arteta and Ramsey, for instance, have both been more important from a defensive viewpoint in the last couple of months - and Koscielny's introduction in the side. At the end of the day we don't have a great defence. We look like Stoke did during the first half of the season at the moment: solid because we've realised just how little we create going forward. They never had the best defence in Premier League and neither do we. We have one great player, one formerly great player who is struggling and a bunch of guys who could be replaced adequately with more or less anyone from the upper half of the table.

asajoseph

I don't think our midfield has helped much at all. Been far too easy for teams to go straight through them for the last month or so.

dreamlord

I think it's looked good when we've held our shape, but gone to the dogs as soon as any player starts pressing. We don't know how to press collectively properly.

Klaus

It's been easy all season. At least we put a bit of pressure on opponents nowadays. What it mostly boils down to is that we've kept the team short though. Less distance between attack and defence. The whole team has fallen back.

Biggus

Nah we still don't press them enough make it far too easy.

Clrnc

Klaus wrote:
Mertesacker is covered by the same kind of statistics that made Djourou and Senderos look great to certain people in the past. Our record has more to do with how we've shaped up as a team - Arteta and Ramsey, for instance, have both been more important from a defensive viewpoint in the last couple of months - and Koscielny's introduction in the side. At the end of the day we don't have a great defence. We look like Stoke did during the first half of the season at the moment: solid because we've realised just how little we create going forward. They never had the best defence in Premier League and neither do we. We have one great player, one formerly great player who is struggling and a bunch of guys who could be replaced adequately with more or less anyone from the upper half of the table.

Don't get why you don't rate Mert at all. There are more than enough games where he looked so solid and easily MOTM when we had our backs to wall. He provides a great option in the air, and is positioning brilliant. It sounds like you only remember his bad moments. He is so consistent since he joined us.

Anyway, weren't you the one who rate Djourou so highly during that run?

dreamlord

Someone should create a player of the season voting thread.

Klaus

Clrnc wrote:
Don't get why you don't rate Mert at all.

I rate him, just not as a starter. There are shades of grey, you know. He's good enough to keep a place in the squad, just not good enough to start. There's very little that separates him and Vermaelen this season. Mertesacker is basically in the team at the moment because he can coexist with Kos.

Clrnc wrote:
Anyway, weren't you the one who rate Djourou so highly during that run?

No, I never rated Djourou much. Not that it really matters, but I got a lot of scorn because I thought Koscielny was our best defender.

Burnwinter

Not from me you didn't, I'm a Koscielny hipster too, I've been on Team Kos since before it was cool!

Qwiss

Clrnc

Burnwinter wrote:
Not from me you didn't, I'm a Koscielny hipster too, I've been on Team Kos since before it was cool!

Loved him since his debut game at Anfield where he had a stormer and then sent off.

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