Ted Grant
Correctly, football scribes up and down the country are bashing away at their keyboards piling praise on our pigeon postured genius Jack Wilshere but there was another star on Wednesday night in our fabulous victory over Barcelona who may have slipped under the radar. Despite an impressive debut at Anfield I think we all winced just a little when that adorable buck-toothed thug El-Hadji Diouf ruthlessly made a mug of our new French defender back in August at Blackburn.
But, despite one or two dodgy moments since, Laurent Koscielny has increasingly shown the qualities that persuaded Arsene to fork out a hefty £8.45m on this relatively unknown player. Arsene’s judgement of players, as we know, is generally none too shabby but a few eyebrows were raised not just at the price tag but the disclosure that Koscielny had played only one full season in that bastion of league football; France’s Ligue 1. Murmurings of previous blunders in the transfer market on the defensive side of things (Cygan, Stepanovs, Luzhny, Senderos) quickly began to gather pace.
I was surprised, though, by those who seemed hasty to write off Koscielny. Very quickly he reminded me of one Thomas Vermaelen - maybe not boasting quite the same power and physique, but sharing similar attributes. Positive, quick, tenacious and more than a little adroit with the ball at his feet. He seemed to me have the basic ingredients to be a very good centre half indeed. Yes, we probably wish he was an inch or two taller and a little more commanding in the air but his heading is certainly not weak and his other attributes more than compensate.
It’s his partner Johan Djourou who has slowly been garnering praise for his performances just recently but against Barca it was Koscielny who stood out. Djourou did not play badly at all but is probably better suited to the Premier League back to front hoofing and hoiking of your Stokes, Birminghams etc. Koscielny’s speed and tenacity was exactly what was required against the quicksilver feet of the Catalonians and time and time again he broke up play with a perfectly timed interception. There was a moment where I held my breath as he ventured beyond the halfway line to continue pursuing his marker but he eventually made the challenge and won the ball. He, as much as anyone, was pivotal in setting the tone that Jack Wilshere had implored we adopt in his pre-match interview.
At 25, Koscielny is no baby, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by his imperious display but as a newcomer to the team and the league he’s adapted extremely well. The fans are often less forgiving about central defenders than players in other positions when it comes to bedding in because they obviously play in a position where mistakes count. But these mistakes have become undoubtedly rarer for Koscielny over the last few months and when Vermaelen is fit again Arsene has a nice little selection headache. While I think most Gooners envisage a mouth watering and potentially formidable pairing of Djourou and Vermaelen, Koscielny is currently undroppable and his continuing improvement makes Vermaelen’s absence a little easier to take.
