French defender Laurent Koscielny has been a vital asset ever since the day he joined Arsenal. The 29-year-old had two shaky seasons at the start, but picked up his form and adapted to the Premier League, becoming Arsenal’s major defending force in the past few seasons.
Koscielny had another splendid season, was arguably Arsenal’s unnamed Player of the Season for some and is preparing for his sixth season with the club, and his fifth alongside German defender Per Mertasacker.
The French-German duo have formed a strong partnership together and intend to keep it that way. Together, they have guarded Arsenal fantastically in the 2013/2014 campaign where Arsenal went unbeaten for 28 games as both Koscielny and Mertesacker featured in every minute.
Laurent Koscielny talked about his connection with Mertesacker and thinks that their pairing is working pretty well: “We have played together for four years now, and I think it works well”.
The French national hailed Mertesacker’s defensive skills and discussed how Arsenal can be a barricade at the back next season.
“Per is good in the air and when he has the ball in front of him, I can recover behind him, and he has space. We have a defence that plays high on the pitch so we need a team where everyone does the defensive job, and I think we did that well last year, and we will do it again this season”.
Arsenal were the best team in the league over the second term of last season as they conceded just seven goals in the club’s final 12 league games and Koscielny insists that Arsenal need to be more consistent defensively.
“The last four months of the season were very good, and we need to keep that going,” he said.
Koscielny went on to say that Arsenal lost the title to Chelsea last year due to injuries and believes that the Gunners can lead a genuine title bid if they are to stay healthy this season.
“Last year we had a good team, but we had a lot of injuries which stopped us. When you have Debuchy, Giroud, Ozil, Wilshere, Walcott all injured for a few months, it makes it difficult to have your best team, and to fight with Chelsea, who didn’t have any big injuries. I hope we will not have a lot of injuries this season”.
Koscielny then talked about his time at Arsenal and how he hopes to help the team now that he is an even more experienced player.
“I’ve been here six years now, and played more than 200 games, so I have more experience, I know my team-mates, I know the club and I feel good with Arsenal. When you are confident, that makes you happy and you give yourself for the team and for the club on the pitch”.
The team has changed a lot ever since the 29-year-old stepped into the club, but Koscielny does not see that as a problem for Arsenal since they have added world class players to the squad. He gives the credit to the mentality Arsenal follows, Wenger’s mentality to be precise, that kept the team moving forward no matter what.
“As for the team, we’ve changed a lot of players during my time here, but for the past two years we have added a lot of players with good quality and a good technical level.
“We have kept our mentality the same, and every year the philosophy stays the same, it’s the philosophy of Wenger. We play football on the floor with movement, combinations”.
