Well Emery will be judged by us fans on his results. He knew full well our defence was a circus last year

When is Koscielny expected to return to full fitness?

Around X-mas if I remember correctly.

Got to hope then for no injuries and that Sokratis hits the ground running with Mustafi finding the form he showed when he first came to the club.

I've been positive for a while now, but this doesn't make sense to me either.

He'll still be our best defender when he's back. That's not a ringing endorsement but it'll be an improvement.

Mirth wrote:

He'll still be our best defender when he's back. That's not a ringing endorsement but it'll be an improvement.

that making a lot of assumptions..  assuming he is fully fit, assuming he hasnt lost 3 yards of pace, assuming his achilles is actually fixed for good, etc..   that's a lot of time off, so we may never see the best of Kos again

Even if Koscielny has dropped a level once he returns to match fitness, he may still be better than Mustafi and Sokratis. At worst, he will be much better than Holding and the Greek boy.

If either Mustafi or Sokratis get injured between now and January we are in trouble.

USArsenal wrote:
Mirth wrote:

He'll still be our best defender when he's back. That's not a ringing endorsement but it'll be an improvement.

that making a lot of assumptions..  assuming he is fully fit, assuming he hasnt lost 3 yards of pace, assuming his achilles is actually fixed for good, etc..   that's a lot of time off, so we may never see the best of Kos again

Oh, I know.

But he'll still be better than Mustafi - even if he comes back broken.

Well we do have Nacho who can play there...

To be honest it's not the cover that concerns me, it's the quality of the two main starters. If we had Varane and Mustafi at the back I'd be happy even with just Holding and Mavropanos as back up, but Sokratis is no Varane.

Koscielny was a liability before he got injured.

Ray wrote:

Koscielny was a liability before he got injured.

Doesn't mean he isn't our best CB, to be honest.

goon wrote:

Well we do have Nacho who can play there...

To be honest it's not the cover that concerns me, it's the quality of the two main starters. If we had Varane and Mustafi at the back I'd be happy even with just Holding and Mavropanos as back up, but Sokratis is no Varane.

QFT.

Mirth wrote:

He'll still be our best defender when he's back. That's not a ringing endorsement but it'll be an improvement.

He wasn't even our best defender last season, expecting him to be anything close to our best after this injury would be crazy.

To clarify, I was shitting on Sokratis and Mustafi. Not bigging up Koscielny.

Thank god, Vida rumors being killed off now on Twitter, by Turkish sources.

Where have all the rumours gone?

Money is tight, Kroenke is the club owner.