More on Nasri and Arsenal’s signing of the season: Laurent Koscielny

Yesterday I didn’t really have many nice things to write about Samir Nasri and I summed it all up with this sentence,

“It’s just shameful to know that money has come to stay in the game and players don’t give 2 hoots about the passion again”.

While I pondered what to write about the Frenchman today an esteemed reader called Westlondongoon left a comment that made me change my perspective about Nasri’s recent shenanigans.

“Looks like Nasri wasn’t the greedy shit we all took him for. He’s come out tonight and said he will sign the contract as stands, but wants to see who Wenger intends to buy first before signing.

He’s just as worried who Wenger’s targets are as the fans are! This could be the single most defining point of Wenger’s tenure. With Cesc off this summer, the next most senior member of our midfield, is challenging the manager to live up to his expectations. This will be a massive test for him. Will he rise to the challenge and buy the player we need (pacifying the fans and senior players), or will he decide that Nasri is now a troublemaker and sell him to the highest bidder (thereby most probably pissing off any players left in the squad who have a modicum of ambition and/or respect)!”

Nasri wants AW to be active in the transfer window before he signs a new contract. This can be seen from 2 different perspectives. The first being that Nasri has now put Arsenal’s boss under a bit of pressure to deliver like he promised shortly after the Fulham game while it also seems as if Nasri wants to keep stalling till his suitors arrive. Before I continue writing about this I’ll like to quote a section of my post on the 29^th of April.

“The media Vultures report that Fabregas and Arshavin have told AW the Alchemist that they will stay at Arsenal if he buys a defense worthy of them. I don’t know about AA23 but I feel for our captain. He was in the form of his life season last term then he ended it with a World Cup medal while playing with those his BarcAlien friends in the Spanish National team. Barca tried everything to woo him to wear their alien clothing and warm their bench but AW the Alchemist did enough to convince him to stay. His performances this season haven’t been sky high but his work ethic and defense splitting through passes played a vital role in our trophy charge this season even if our defense capitulated times without number this season. Take the Liverpool game for instance. How would you feel if you waltzed into the opponent’s box late on before being hacked down by some bloke, you get injured but you request that you want to see the penalty being played before you’re taking to the treatment room. Your teammate scores in the 98^th minute while you celebrate on the stretcher only to see another teammate concede a penalty in the 101^st minute which your opponents converted to level the tie or the Birmingham game when you the striker execute a scissors kick to equalize for your team then you get injured in the process only to see your teammate kick thin air in the 89^th minute for your opponents to win the trophy while you’re gutted and probably crying while there’s an ice pack on your knee. I wrote in a previous post that I will not begrudge Fabregas or rVp if they leave the club but they have to understand that they are essential to us because they are the leaders of the team.”

Nasri has just repeated what Fabregas and Arshavin said two months ago. Whether Nasri signs a new deal or not, Arsene Wenger needs to wipe the dust off our cheque book to get players that are ready to win trophies for the club. Not Brazilians that say that they have been frustrated 8 months ago or Danes that say that they are 100% sure of leaving the club. In Football Manager, players get happy if their manager signs players that are the favoured personnel or when the manager signs a player that was recommended by someone in the team.

Kolo Toure kissed AW’s ass several times to sign his brother Yaya from Olympiakos. If Yaya wore the Red and White, Kolo would have still been at Arsenal, not in Man City being a junkie. When Valencia were flirting with the rest of the footballing World using Villa and Silva as bait before the European Championships in 2008, Fabregas told AW that if he signs Villa, he’ll supply him with 20 assists. Wenger went to the tournament in Switzerland and Austria but did nothing. The list of players who would have joined Arsenal goes on and on but AW needs to take a stand this summer to keep Nasri and maybe Fabregas. Arshavin has already cleared the air that he’s staying with us.

Every football club has certain traditions they have to stick to. One of the traditions includes awards for the services of the players. I’ve written my own season review and Jack Wilshere was voted as Arsenal’s Player of the Season. At the start of the season, AW bought 3 French based players into the squad so one of the players had to be voted for as the signing of the season. Most French oldies would have preferred their fellow old hag Sebastien Squillaci to win the award but there was no way it would have been possible seeing what the Squisha did for us this season.

Djourou and Koscielny played in St. James Park and Arsenal were 4 goals to the good but as soon as Djourou got substituted due to an injury, Arsenal’s defense capitulated and Newcastle sent football pundits into orgasm with an epic comeback. Squillaci was also a culprit when any error occurred in our defense anytime he played. He was so shitty that he got sent off against Huddersfield Town for a professional foul way up field. Marouane Chamakh was a free acquisition that exceled admirably in the tail end of 2010 but 2011 is a year that Chamakh will try his best to quickly forget, for the half part of it at least. The Moroccan scored a solitary goal in the turn of the year in the 5-0 thrashing of Leyton Orient after scoring 10 goals in his first 21 appearances.

The signing of the season will undoubtedly be Laurent Koscielny. The relative unknown center back joined Arsenal from FC Lorient for £8.25m. With the absence of Thomas Vermaelen, he and Johan Djourou have forged a very strong understanding and have worked very hard in the heart of our defense. They even have a catchy nickname called Djourcielny. He was born on the 10th of September, 1985 in a French town called Tulle. The way his career has turned around is a massive fairytale. 4 years ago, he was plying his trade in Tours FC, a Ligue 2 outfit. In his next season with the club he missed only 4 league games and scored 5 goals in the process. This earned him a place in the French Ligue 2 Team of the Year. FC Lorient snatched him up for €1.7m. He was also ever-present in the club that has a fish with a ball as its logo and missed only 3 league games.

When the Mercenary, Silvestre and Send Errors left the club due to expired contracts, AW the Alchemist felt that it was time for Koscielny to step into the limelight by signing him from FC Lorient after one season with the midtable french outfit. His amazing ability to anticipate the ball and tackle superbly earned him the Gooner Daily nick “Kos100%tackle”. Besides he had a 100% tackle rating in Ligue 1 in the 2009/10 season.

Koscielny was a player that didn’t really rest this season. He even amassed more minutes than jack Wilshere, a player that was labeled to have played 1,000,000 games so he had to be left out of the Under-21 squad.

Koscielny amassed a total of 43 games for Arsenal this season with 3 in the FA Cup, 4 in the Champions League, 6 in the Carling Spoon and 30 in the Premier League. He also managed to score 3 goals in his debut season with the club. His account opener was in the 6-0 spanking of Blackpool, his next was a solid header against Ipswich in the Carling Spoon semifinal and his last and most important was the match winner against Everton in February. He was also brandished the red card two times this season with his first being on his debut in Anfield Transylvania and the other for a professional foul against Nile Ranger when Newcastle visited the Emirates.

The lowest point of his Arsenal career will definitely be that cock-up he had with Wojciech Szczesny in the Carling Spoon final against Birmingham but he had an excellent season for us by his standards. There has been talk of a new defender like Samba joining the club so Koscielny’s place will definitely be under threat thereby making him to play on his toes to bring the best out of him. I’m pretty confident that Koscielny will get many more games for Arsenal next season because the club has players that have fragile bones.

Kudos to Koscielny for winning the player of the season awards for the 2010/11 season.

Sayonara

Submitted by Gooner Daily