Laurent Koscielny says taking care of business at the Emirates will be the bedrock of Arsenal’s title charge with the Frenchman highlighting defensive solidity on home turf as a real boon.
Everton are the only visiting side to have scored against Arsene Wenger’s squad since October with the Gunners accumulating seven clean sheets in eight home games since defeat to Chelsea in the Carling Cup.
“When you want to win the title you need to take care of all of the points at home,” the 28-year-old told Arsenal Player.
“To do this it’s important to not concede a lot of goals at the Emirates and we have done well.
“I hope we continue to do this for the rest of the season. I think all the players in the squad want to win something and we have worked hard. The season is very long and very hard.
“We need to keep our quality to work hard in training and to be strong for the games. You know when we keep a clean sheet that we have the players in front of us to make the difference and will have the opportunities to score.”
One of the attacking players looking to do exactly that is young Serge Gnabry. The German teenager has been hailed in all quarters for his bullishly energetic performance against Sp*rs at the weekend with Mikel Arteta the latest to shower him with praise.
“I think he’s got a lot of quality,” Arteta told Arsenal.com. “He’s got something not many players have in this team, which is pace and skill to go and beat people.
“He’s like a little boxer, he’s a little fighter. He’s good. He’s got a lot of character as well, the lad doesn’t get intimidated either because it’s a derby.
“His character is great. You see it in training. Technically, he is very good but he’s got something about him as well. He doesn’t mind when he gets kicked, he gets up and goes for the next ball. He’s quite brave.”
I am the boss
I want to dance with the boss. i want to feel the heat with the boss.
Don’t you just love how Koscienly disposseses a cunt and runs upfield with the ball like nothing has happened.
Spot on, Kos. The biggest difference between the side now and a year ago is the quality of defending, both home and away. A couple of years ago we were making a nasty habit of conceding bad goals and throwing away leads; now we are rock-solid at the back. After that second goal went in on Saturday everybody knew that the game was over: Spurs were never going to score twice against us. It was just like the George Graham days. Everything changed after that defeat at WHL last season. Realising that our Champions’ League place was in serious danger,… Read more »
How you, a simple fan, can put it so succinctly yet Savage, a man paid to talk about football, can fail to even do some rudimentary analysis is beyond me.
They should force Hansen to read that post out on MOTD along with the phrase ‘I was wrong about Arsenal’.
I wouldn’t say that Chelsea are better going forward than we are, it’s just that we don’t concede as many goals as they do so we don’t have to attack as often. One thing that’s been good this season is that we’ve picked our moments to attack and defend pretty well overall. When we do turn it on though, it’s hard to find a more entertaining side in Europe than us.
Exactly we don’t have to attack as much as them seing as we mostly score first, yet when it comes to Chavs we have still outscored them beyond that Theo , Poldi , Santi scored rougly 70% of our goals last season and they have all been out injured for months and were all coming back into form with Theo first in line before this , So we have more goals in us.
you sense the times are a-changing when Fatgooner suddenly doesn’t sound negative.
it’s almost worth a story on the news page in itself
i kidnapped the real fatgooner
Suspected as much.
loving the damascene conversion, FG what i loved most about tr7’s goal on saturday was that it was exactly the kind of tearing-your-hair-out goal we were conceding the last couple of seasons. nice to see us score one of those rather than be watching us let one in. i don’t think that chelsea and city are better going forward, but i do think they have more who can finish clinically, so unless podolski and walcott step up and contribute 15+ goals each between now and may then another striker may be necessary. although TGSTEL has been starting to look as… Read more »
I cringed when i saw the mention of Walcottt’s name. It’s quite unfortunate
Steven Bould Steven Bould Steven muthaf*kin Bould!
Your are spot on FG. I love Pat Rice and everything he’s done for the club, absolute legend.But the first game Bould was in charge as AM and running on the pitch with the team before the gamejust gave me a feeling that we turned a page. We also had the second best defensive record the previous season with him in charge.
That and Song fucking off to french kiss the bench with his arsehole.
Almost completely agree, except for a couple of things: 1). we had the same defensive competence last season — look at the first few games of last season to see, so it is not an issue of Wenger not listening to Bould. 2). Last season it was clear that we could successfully focus on defense and be impregnable, OR play our attacking game (which is always Wengers preference), but the squad at the time didn’t allow us to do one without compromising the other. The team shifted balance through the season, and the end had the pragmatic approach get us… Read more »
Just wondering, but who vote thumbs down for a comment like this ?
Thumbed up the comment for your (rare) lack of negativity but I disagree: 1) Wenger was listening to Steve Bould from the beginning – we started the season with a deep back four as opposed to the high line we were used to playing. Our full backs would take it in turns to bomb forward and the midfield would sweep up deep in front of the defence when we didnt have the ball. Our turnaround had a lot of variables – a key factor was the backs to the wall attitude adopted by ever player since Munich. 2) Wenger helped… Read more »
Well said Fatgooner.
Totally agree with the sentiment. Mostly agree with the content.
Not on board about what you said about Arsene deciding to listen to Steve Bould but hey, that’s just me, so we’ll agree to disagree (I had written a rather fabulous missive to demonstrate why I disagreed with this point but it got lost in the ether, so that sentence will have to do).
On a side note, why will my phone only let me thumb up a comment if I’m using my thumb? It’s creeping me out…
Now, just convince Rosicky to stay and we’ll have a party
Hopefully they check his pockets before they wash his kit, Soldado might still be stuck in there
I guess he left it as soon as he could, who wants to spend so much time in such a small space with adebaywhore?
Well, they do love to ‘spend’ over there at WHL, soo…
I’ll get my coat!
I love Kos. Fantastic defender and an absolute warrior. Top man.
He even looks like the mate who always gets the pints in when others are trying to decide whose round it is…
and as the night goes on he comes back with tequilas on the side
Whenever I see this man I remember that there are some people who will still say that Arsene cant buy defenders.
Love this guy.
In my country Kos means vagina, Laurent is changing that
hahahaha. Where are you from?
Iran
u know take away that anomaly of that man city game and we will would have only conceded like only 12 goals.
conceded goals for Arsenal in the premier league… Aston Villa (home, Aug 17) – 3 goals Fulham (away, Aug 24) – 1 goal Sunderland (away, Sep 14) – 1 goal Stoke (home, Sep 22) – 1 goal Swansea (away, Sep 28) – 1 goal West Brom (away, Oct 6) – 1 goal Norwich (home, Oct 19) – 1 goal Man Utd (away, Nov 10) – 1 goal Everton (home, Dec 8) – 1 goal Man City (away, Dec 14) – 6 goals West Ham (away, Dec 26) – 1 goal total conceded at home – 6 goals total conceded away… Read more »
So half of those goals came from two games. That makes us even more impressive. But we should be careful in the future not to break down like we did in those games.
I have got Rooney, Suarez, Aguero in my right pocket and Higuain, Torres, Eto, Lukaku in the left one.
Aguero,Negredo,Dzeko and Jovetic!!!
Dear Arsene,i am a strong believer in you.But,when i think of all this strikers and see our problem in not having a fox-in-the box type striker, i am so scared!!!please get a decent or average striker on Loan or permanent move.We have a real chance of getting a trophy this season.
Come on you goonerssssssssssssssssss!!!!
shhhh
I know, just ruined my morning with transfer crap
I also fucking love Arteta. He sounds like a manager himself, and his performances this year has been steely as fuck. It’s like Santi said about Wenger being more driven, I think that has rubbed off on Mik as well. He and Wenger seem to be quite close; remember when we drew 1-1 at Newcastle Mikel was the first man Arséne turned to in celebration.
Mikel’s- and by extenson our midfield- performances has enabled us to protect our back 4 much better than in recent seasons.
If Mikel gets a couple more seasons he will be candidate for canonisation and a spot in the Arsenal panthoen of greats, where he will bask in the eternal glory of Bergkamp.
If you could bottle his arsenalness you could take that bottle and smash itover RVPs ungrateful badger head
….Wenger got him 4 how much….Arsene iz a god wen it comes to spending….He cud buy a fire cracker and turn it 2 a nuclear weapon….in Arsene I trust
#COYG
The turn around last season started when Wenger dropped Vermaelen and Scez. For various reasons, the defence wasn’t working but to drop your captain and first-choice keeper took real balls! And it worked. It showed Scez he had to improve his focus and showed the rest of the team they had to buck there ideas up and no-one would stay in the team unless on merit. On a practical level Kos and Per are a better partnership and we’ve gone from strength to strength with the whole team improving since last season, especially Giroud. Then of course there was the… Read more »
Hi, I’m a big fan of Arseblog and enjoy reading your posts. I also like reading some of the comments from time to time so I get a sense of my fellow gooners’ take on all matter Arsenal.
As I’m not English so some of the terms you use are lost on me.
I keep seeing the term “TGSTEL” and I’ve been wondering what it stands for?
The Greatest Striker That Ever Lived
Oh sorry!!!
i clicked the wrong button.i just wanted to click on Like.
Oh dear, gunner for ever, you’re in trouble now! Expect Arseblogs hell hounds to be at your door any minute!
@ Toby: Not to mention TGSTEL mistaking his door with the one leading to his pool…
So we are not comparing him to Roy Race, blackie lawless, billy the fish, george goode or Ball Boy from the beano?
coz that would be unfair.
Cheers!
For every Kosienlys, there are squilachis. For every Girouds,there are chamaks!!!
As we keep on admiring AW for all his genius on his sustainable and future sighted work, we must also be on his side when some players fail to perform as we wish.
Proud to be a life long gunner!!!!
Sometime reality is wrong.
Arsene Knows this.
G4ever – I think you mean for every Giroud there is a Park. Mourane did score 10 odd goals for us when we lost our last striker, he shall go nameless, to injury at the beginning of the season. We didn’t really need him after that, though he never showed up in a game that I can remember, after our #1 striker that year was healthy again. Also, there was no transfer fee for MC, I believe there was an agent/signing fee… Anyway, not to pick since I agree completely with the overall point of your message.
You had a point.thank you
Who down voted me being the boss. Oi coin tossers go collect more pennies
Gunner for ever probably clicked by accident
You made me laugh a lot.thank you
I am glad I chose to buy his jersey last season.. He wasn’t so famous and my football loving friends laughed at me asking who is this guy..! Now i guess they all know! He has been one of my favorite gooner ever since he stepped in ..
Per is the reason
Steve Bould
…something the lazy media continues to fail to pick up. We are so solid at the back at the moment. Even with 10 men, we feel a more solid package and you could feel the team’s hunger not to concede or make a daft mistake. I think we haven’t been quite as huge in goal scoring this season (comparatively) principally because there has been a bit more caution to our game in making sure first and foremost we get the basics right and are water tight. We know we will sneak a goal at very least so not conceding becomes… Read more »
On the note of the media, keep up the good work.
Having the likes of Andrew and Gunnerblog on that crumby ESPN site has been a great service in dispelling some of the simplistic myths farted out by the more lazy and ill informed media pundits (mainly ex Liverpool players, Robbie Savage, some Venenzuelan guy, Craig Burley and that idiot Shaka Hislop, Miguel Delaney…whoever he is and old onion bag Tommy Smith aren’t terribly good either)
Kos: I am the pocket, and you shall not get out (villainous laughter).