Arsenal: Laurent Koscielny injury could have been avoided

Laurent Koscielny has not had a good year with Arsenal, but given everything that’s happened, someone needs to be asking questions about what could have been avoided.

Non-contact injuries are always the worst. Seeing Laurent Koscielny leisurely walking, then his leg buckling and him slamming the ground is a freak injury, the likes of which not even Arsenal can claim to be used to.

Early speculation was clear – it was a serous achilles injury. Later reports confirmed that it was indeed a tear, and that Koscielny would miss six months – which includes the World Cup this summer, likely his last chance at winning it with France.

The news is obviously rather devastating. But moving on from the emotional standpoint, I can’t help but feel that someone needs to be asking questions about how this might have been avoided.

We heard earlier this year that Koscielny is constantly in pain because of his achilles. He has to have injections to dull the pain just to play the game. Right off the top of my head, I’m thinking that doesn’t sound too good.

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Not just that, but given how poor Koscielny has been this year, why is it that he was being risked so much rather than, say, taking some time off to recover? If recovery was not an option, then A) just how bad is this injury and B) should he be playing at all?

Koscielny has a lot of mileage, and the fact that he is in such rough shape is no indictment of him or his quality. And honestly, once I heard about the pain he was in, I no longer question why he had been so poor all year. Anyone would be poor if their achilles were in such a state.

But while that is excusable, what isn’t is the continued usage of him. He is in constant pain, shaky at the back and far from his normal self, and yet he has almost played 3,000 minutes this year. Is this not jiving with anyone else?

Hindsight is 20/20, yes. But it doesn’t require hindsight to question the continued use of someone who has been ineffective primarily because of his ailing body. And maybe it was just fluky that his achilles just happened to tear in the 7th minute of the Europa League semi-final second leg, but if we had taken the proactive measures earlier in the season, sat him for a bit, let him recover and let Calum Chambers establish himself, could this all have been avoided?

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Like I said, a lot of questions. And I reckon we won’t get any answers.

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