Arsenal: Laurent Koscielny doesn’t ever have to leave, does he?

Arsenal’s defense is a completely different beast when Laurent Koscielny is in there, so he doesn’t ever have to leave, right?

Last season, Arsenal‘s defense was the worst I had ever seen. Having spent the years watching Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker combine relatively effectively, it was an absolute massacre, by comparison. It wasn’t until Calum Chambers and Konstantinos Mavropanos came out in the final month of the season that I saw any hope.

So, naturally, when Chambers was loaned out and Mavropanos injured, I saw that hope dissipating. Sokratis wasn’t the solution, by many estimations, and Shkodran Mustafi will always be Shkodran Mustafi (probably).

There didn’t seem to be a solution. Laurent Koscielny would be returning from nearly a year out of the game with a serious ACL injury that kept him out of a World Cup-winning French National team, so I think we could all be forgiven for not all singing campfire songs about how Koscielny was going to come back and save the world.

But that’s exactly what he did. Like, exactly. He was a bit rusty (how dare he, right?), but when he settled back into the back line, he was a completely new defender, and one that imbued everything with hope.

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When he was with Sokratis, this defense was dominant. Two no-nonsense defenders that complimented each other even better than Koscielny and the BFG, back in the day. They were fantastic.

But when Koscielny was out and Sokratis was paired with Mustafi, again, the problems reared their ugly heads.

It was clear who the glue was in this defense – it was Koscielny. He had assumed his old row of being the anchor of the team, the captain by example, the infallible.

Of course, that raises the longevity issue, because Koscielny has indicated that he will be leaving the club when his contract runs up in 2020, and some are asking for him to be sold this summer, which I find to be blasphemy of the highest order.

Frankly, I want Koscielny to stay for as long as he wants. I don’t want him to ever leave. The service he has done for this club is such that if he wants to nurse a spot on the club at 35 and serve in a rotational role, than I wouldn’t deny him.

There comes a point when you’ve seen a player for so long, and have no further questions about his undeniable fortitude that you make exceptions for him. That is Koscielny. I hope he never leaves.