Arsenal: Francis Coquelin showed us all we need to know

Arsenal started Francis Coquelin, fresh back from his injury, and the rambunctious Frenchman showed us all that we need to know.

I always think back to when Francis Coquelin was called back to Arsenal mid-loan to Charlton Athletic. There was never a great deal expected out of him and Sir Alex Ferguson somewhat famously put the Frenchman down.

But that huge burst onto the Premier League scene was inspiring. The club had gone so long without someone like him – a true ball winner. For all of the skills that Arsenal has in abundance, a mid-field patrol car like Coquelin is not one of them.

Sure, you have a few guys that dabble in winning the ball back, but Coquelin doesn’t dabble in anything, he either blows you over with the force of a thousand tornadoes or he doesn’t. There really isn’t any middle ground for him.

Given the current state of the Arsenal midfield, I have been fondly awaiting the return of Coquelin, simply because I never again want to see the half-assed effort like I saw out of Mohamed Elneny and Granit Xhaka against Watford.

There was not a single ounce of urgency in these two from start to finish and it was beyond infuriating.

Coquelin is urgency incarnate. When he goes in for a tackle, he’s going in with the same intensity as Obi-Wan went in on Darth Maul after Qui-Gon Jinn was slain. Nothing held back, balls to the wall, let’s do this. One of us is leaving here with the ball, and it isn’t going to be you. Or, if it is, you’re going to be in a significant deal of pain because of it.

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And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that a bit refreshing? Coquelin completed three tackles, three interceptions, numbers the likes of which we will not see replicated by Xhaka or Elneny any time soon.

The best part, though, was knowing that when the other team hit the midfield, we wouldn’t have to wait for the defense to step up to put some pressure on the ball. When Coquelin is in the game, you have constant, ferocious pressure on the ball.

Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but that was also incredibly refreshing.

Of course, it was Coquelin, and therefore his passing was off-the-wall erratic, but after seeing Elneny and Xhaka, two solid passers, dink the ball around for 90 minutes against Watford, I think I’d trade that for a bit of permanent, urgent pressure.

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If the idea is to make Arsenal more hungry and more mean, then Coquelin has to be part of the schematics. No questions asked.

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