Arsenal and Laurent Koscielny: His greatest season

Laurent Koscielny is enjoying his best-ever season as a footballer. Not for his play on the field, necessarily, but for everything the Arsenal captain has been through.

Laurent Koscielny was noticeably and significantly moved when he was stretchered off against Atletico Madrid last season. A World Cup was on the horizon that summer, the final few matches with the manager who he has credited with blessing his career in a father-like manner, the chance to win a European trophy. All of those were dashed thanks to the same old Achilles.

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Koscielny would miss the best part of nine months thanks to a ruptured Achilles. Very much the wrong side of 30 and having dealt with a slew of injury issues that have riddled the entirety of his career, you would have been forgiven for believing that this was the end of his competitive football time.

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And when he finally returned to the first-team squad, his initial performances perhaps suggested that he would not recover that elite performance level that he was known for. Koscielny struggled. He wasn’t quite as quick as he had been, a key element of his game, he lacked that full-match sharpness that comes with regular football, and he made a few mistakes.

Slowly, however, Koscielny settled into his role as the starting centre-back. He and Sokratis developed a complementing partnership at the heart of the defence, and as players like Nacho Monreal also returned to the team, Koscielny’s performances dramatically improved. And more recently, his performance level has been exceptionally high. Brilliant showings against Manchester United, Spurs and Chelsea have punctuated an improving run of form.

Based on his pure footballing impact, this has not been Koscielny’s greatest season. He was one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League during his great periods with Per Mertesacker. He is not quite at the same level this season. But I would still rank this current campaign as his greatest.

Not because of what he has provided on the pitch, although he has still been a key component of Arsenal’s resurgence since early February. But because of what he has come through and the attitude that he has shown throughout. Koscielny’s recovery is a sensational human story, not just a football story, and that is why this season is so powerful.

His leadership, the self-awareness of his interviews, his humility and recognition of his veteran presence and acknowledgement of what he has missed in France’s World Cup-winning campaign. These are the qualities that make him a true Arsenal legend, and make this season Koscielny’s greatest in his career.

So all hail Laurent Koscielny. The fighter. The redeemed. The brilliant. The captain.