After the disappointing 3-1 defeat to Chelsea at the weekend, stories emerged to suggest that Laurent Koscielny had a pop at Arsene Wenger about his team selection.
“Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny questions Arsene Wenger’s team selection in Chelsea collapse” – read the headline in the Mirror.
“Koscielny queries team selection” – said Sky Sports.
The incriminating line was translated as: “I think we played certain players after others and I think we should have played more as a team and with much more movement,” which many took to mean Wenger’s selection left players on the bench ahead of those who should have played.
Although, there seemed to be no suggestion of who that might have been, and while there are always tweaks which can be made, there were few complaints about the starting XI on the day.
We asked our pal Philippe Auclair to have a look at the original video for us, broadcast on SFR, to see if this was really the case.
This is what Koscielny said in French, verbatim:
“Je pense qu’on s’est beaucoup marché dessus. On aurait dû jouer comme une équipe, ce qui n’a pas été le cas. Ils nous ont surtout eu en contre, s’est plaint l’international tricolore. On doit revenir à ce qu’on sait faire et retrouver notre qualité dans le jeu, les passes et les mouvements.”
And this is Philippe’s translation:
“I think we walked over each other’s feet a lot [ie we were not disciplined enough]. We should have played as a team, which wasn’t the case. More than anything, they ‘had’ us on counter-attacks. We must get back to what we know how to do [best] and find our quality again in the game [‘jeu’ is untranslatable, I’m afraid], our passing and movement”.
So, while nobody is saying anything other than our performance on the day was dreadful, it’s worth pointing out in a time when accuracy in the news is at an all time low, Koscielny wasn’t hanging the manager out to dry as is being suggested.
Now, let’s get on with our lives, and read about why cauliflower is disgusting to some but not to others.
The Daily Mirror telling lies ???!!! I am truly shocked!!!… Seriously, why does anyone read these papers any more? Even the supposed ‘real’ newspapers are full of shit and not just about sport. If I want Arsenal news that I can trust I read Arseblog and thats about it.
sadly, the only way to get newspapers to stop click-baiting is to actually subscribe to them. NY Times is a good one. Guardian seems pretty legit when I read it.
I even stopped using Adblock on Arseblog to help Andrew pay the bills to keep up his amazing work. I even click on the bloody ads because I think it will help him.
This is the only site I have white-listed. I hadn’t gone so far as to actually click on the ads, but maybe I will now.
I said it in a previous post that there is a massive anti Arsenal campaign against us in the media. Today I saw another Sky Sports News post on Facebook hammering us for ‘finishing fourth’ every season.. when if you’re saying that, you can just as easily say Arsenal finish ‘second every season’ because we under Arsene Wenger we have finished fourth as many times as we have finished second.. yet nobody ever mentions that.. I wonder why that is.
Cunts.
To be fair to the Mirror, they are by no means the worst at this (see The S*n, The Mail & The Express)
Media misquote a player to help create a story? Shock.
Fuck The Daily Fail, The Cunts, and The Shitter.
I really have a hard time liking football and everything around it when we lose. Imagine we had beaten Chelsea 3-0, so many people across the world would have spent a better week.
Perhaps it would be easier if people stopped taking football so seriously. At the end of the day, we invest a lot of time and money to watch a bunch of millionaires kick a ball about, who earn more in a week than most of us do in an year. Enjoy it as long as it entertains you but when it turns to make your life miserable instead of entertaining, it’s time to quit.
@lol If you love football, then watch the bundesliga. Bar Arsenal and man city teams generally play boring football. So many young and exciting players, great atmosphere in the stadiums, great commentary, good referees, young coaches (hoffenheim’s coach is only 28).
Spot on son. Just what I thought.
Fake news. Many people in danger. Sad! #MAGA
We are going to make the media great again.
When was it great?
How do Donald’s Trumps smell?
So alternative facts then?
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.
Dashing, Alan, as always.
Truth is an abomination for popular press.. Feed the populace what they want and get the monies.. The night is dark and full of terror
Nobody cares about the truth
If we win the rest of our games, that will take us to 89 points. We’ve scored 52 goals so far in the PL( joint top along with Liverpool) but Chelsea have 6 more clean sheets. Bar the Chelsea game, in all of the games we’ve lost, we’ve taken the lead and only lost by a 1 goal margin. It seems to me that if we can somehow manage to fix our defensive problems, we might just pull it off. I’m not saying we will win the title, I’m just saying can get that point tally. And let’s see what… Read more »
So we have won 58% of our league games so far this season, but you’re imagining us winning 100% of the remaining 14 games.
I’m trying to work out whether you are joking, trolling or deluded?
I actually really admire how you can see the positive in such a negative situation. But we need to be real, we are 12 behind Chelsea who don’t look like they will concede many goals from now to the end of the season. I think some of the criticism our team endures is a bit over the top, we’re not getting relegated here but the team mentally cannot go on a winning streak good enough to overcome a 12 point deficit. That’s the sad reality…
The gap will probably be bigger than 12 points by the end of the season. I expect us to drop some points (tough away games on the horizon), and I don’t expect the Chavs to drop many at all.
Wish it was different but let’s be realistic and face facts.
fuck media…. except arseblog
amen. thimbleweed park development blog too.
No matter what the media says.
We should’ve definitely started the inanimate carbon rod
In Rod we trust
What is this “we should have played as a team” shit?. I mean, play as a team throughout the season against every opposition. The invincibles never entertained teams such as Burnley or swansea. why, because they respected the opposition. we used to see cricket scoreline in such games. not any more
Maybe because teams like Swansea have quality now. Gylfi sigurdsson, Fernando llorente and Leroy fer are very good players. And Chelsea creamed the invincibles side too you know.
I did not believe Laurent would have said that anyway,he is just not that sort of guy. That said it does not deflect from the reality of the woeful performance that highlighted the Teams deficiencies. Chelsea,the Man’s C & U and Tottenham are better units and at this time of the season it is a critical failure for us. Forget the constant clamour for winning the Title and let’s get back to the reality of mounting a sustainable challenge for it. It has been too many years now of watching this mid season collapse and listening to Arsene making excuses… Read more »
I love cauliflower.
That’s such a Philippe Auclair translation. He should do audiobooks of French works in English.
It’s shit compared to the arsecasts, but Monday’s football weekly was all handbags! Big Poppa Phil, The Rafa, Barry G-Dawg getting twitchy about uncle Claudio.
That’s not misrepresentation. It’s down right wrong. Mistranslated.
Not about football per se, but aren’t there any laws regarding the false reporting of news?
Shouldn’t this kind of thing (especially in world news etc.) be illegal?
Yes, I believe that is called “slander”.
Koscielny has the right to pursue legal action. Other players in the past have taken up this option.
You touch them and they say democracy is in danger, these pathetic manipulators.
Can we really expect the same newspapers which hacked a murdered child’s phone to be anything other than disingenuous, cheating and deceiving?
Fake news. You’re fired
I think people who think Cauliflower is disgusting is disgusting. ?
are
Look, why are you blaming cauliflower for all your problems? Well, that is the way I interpreted that line 🙂
I wish this story was true. I was hoping one or two Arsenal players would grow some balls and stand up to Wenger!! Wenger is a stubborn mother fker and we will never move forward with his no plan B approach.
No Manager should have a choice when he leaves the club. If he is shit, then he needs to get the sack.
If wenger was at Chelsea, Utd, City, Liverpool, Spuds, or even Newcastle he would have been sacked 4 or 5 times already.
Cauliflower is great but works so much better with cheese sauce,now thats a real team!
Yes cauliflower cheese is top top.
Roast dolphin served with cauliflower sauce by Phil Collins.
Heaven?
Curried Cauliflower is pretty good.
Also as a soup. None too shabby.
You work to the limits of the ingredients.
Its how you prepare just like anything in life.
Not sure why everyone was on Mustafi’s back last game. He misplaced way too many passes but that was in part because there was little movement ahead and he was trying his best to replicate what Granit does. If anything Koscielny was atrocious last game but gets away lightly. People have their favorites I suppose. Ditto Alexis who turned over possession way too many times. Statistically, they weren’t passes as he was trying too hard to over elborate taking on players unnecessarily, but there you go that’s statistics for you, it’s what some want you to see. I think Koscielny,… Read more »
“They had us on counter attacks”. A shame we conceded that totally fair, legitimate, not-at-all-a-fucking-joke-that-it-stood opening goal then. Fucking cunt Alonso.
Speaking as someone whose first language is French, I actually think that ‘jeu’ can be translated as ‘play’ in this context. The meaning is then that we need to improve the quality of our overall game play.