Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » Welcome Laurent, do us another Verminator act
As you’ll know, Laurent Koscielny is our latest new signing.
If we want to be honest before his name was linked with Arsenal not many of us had heard his name. And I have to confess that I never had heard of him before either. I must say that I did on occasion look at a match from the French Ligue 1 when Bordeaux was playing when we had been linked with Chamakh. But I can’t remember seeing any match of Lorient in that period.
So another unknown French, or is it Polish, player comes to Arsenal. Some have already made up their mind and know for sure that he is not good enough and will never be good enough. I think these are the same persons who said the same thing about Sagna, Vermaelen, Clichy, and many others that were unknown to most of the English fans.
Of course we don’t know yet if he will turn out a new Vermaelen. We just will wait and see. But what we can do is have a look at what he has done so far in his career and look at some statistics from the French league.
To start with is maybe an important issue for some fans: his height. Well he is 1,86 m or 6 ft 1 in tall. He is taller than Vermaelen so that is already out of the way.
He was born on 10 September 1985 in Tulle, which is, as you will guess, in France. He started his career with Guingamp but then he went to Tours where he scored 5 goals in the season 2008-2009 as a defender. Tours was a team in the second French division and at the end of that season he was voted in the best XI by his colleagues from the second division.
He then went to Lorient last summer and he had another great season, again was having a very big part in their comfortable season in the league which ended with a 7th place.
He started 35 games of the 38 in total and this could show that he normally is a player that is not prone to injury. I would say that this is something, when you look at our injury crisis we most have, very important.
He plays very well with both feet. He is naturally right ooted but he mostly played on the left hand side of the centre back position last season and he uses his left foot just like his right. He is a very good header, so it seems, and he has an eye for the right interception at the right time.
He wins a lot of balls and in fact he was the defender who won most balls in the Ligue 1 last year. In average he won 19 balls per game. The average of other defenders in his place was 13 balls won. In his best game he won 36 balls in one game. That means that he won a ball every 2,5 minutes. I must say that looks impressive.
In both this statistics he was the best in the Ligue 1 last season. In the official statistics of the Ligue 1 they named him and they even used his name to advertise for this year review. They said about him that it looks that he monopolizes the spot of the defender who nicks the most balls away. And they go further by saying: “Do we dare to say he was the best defender in the French Ligue 1 last season?”
If we take his last season in total and put it in numbers we get something like this:
In the league he started 35 games. In these 35 games he played 3.115 minutes and that is an average of 89 minutes per game. I think it is fair to say that he always started when he was fit and only left the field when he got a knock.
In those 35 league games he scored 3 goals. In average he touches the ball some 36 times in a match and in total he loses some 10 balls in a game. These lost balls can be anything from sliding a ball out of play to giving possession to the other team. .
In total he had 9 shots on goal, he is a defender after all, and 5 of them were on target. He averages some 28 passes in a game and 22 of them come to a team mate.
And by being maybe the best defender in the French league last season he did this with just 39 fouls committed in his 35 games. So he doesn’t look like a defender that gives away many free kicks. In fact he suffered almost as many fouls as he made himself. He was fouled 32 times in the whole season. And in 35 games he only got 3 yellow cards behind his name.
So if we can believe the statistics we have bought a defender that wins a lot of balls and doing this in a way without making to many fouls and rarely get booked when he makes a foul.
In fact the worst moment of his career last season was when Lorient played Bordeaux in the French Ligue cup. Koscielny fouled Chamakh and got sent off the field as he was the last defender. So he will be glad that he will be in the same team this time around.
And also this maybe brings back a little reminder of the fact that when Vermaelen met Van Persie the last time before they became team mates they were involved in an incident with both players looking ready to strangle the other.
And in his first interview with Arsenal he said that from the moment that he heard that Arsenal and Wenger wanted him he immediately made up his mind. Remember Vermaelen last season: “When Wenger wants you to join The Arsenal, you just go.”
So for those who already know that Koscielny is not good enough I would just ask them to remember all those “unknown” players Wenger bought before that turned out to be great players when we actually saw them play. Just give this guy an honest chance to become a real Gunner.
Welcome Laurent, here is one web site that will give you the support you need.
PS: For the others who will not want to give you their support from the first moment: Wenger just said that he is still in the market for another defender.
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