The BBC’s David Ornstein has had his say on Laurent Koscielny’s decision not to travel on Arsenal’s pre-season tour of the USA revealing the defender recently asked the club to let him leave for free.
The 33-year-old, who has played 353 times for the Gunners and won the FA Cup twice, is under contract for another year so, unsurprisingly, the club rejected his appeal. At the tail-end of last season, it had looked like he might even be open to a contract extension.
It’s believed that several clubs are understood to be interested in signing our club captain on a Bosman (no shit!) but obviously with our tight summer budget and shit defence, the idea of letting him go on his own terms just doesn’t make any sense.
Arsenal/Koscielny talks late last season looked +ve. Back from break, asked for release, refused. Relayed tour decision Wed, confirmed @ Colney today. Flight 1230 without him. Not stripped of captaincy yet, must train or breach contract. #AFC have no offers, he does if free agent
— David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) July 11, 2019
Granted, we do have previous letting long-serving players leave early. Sol Campbell, who’d outlined a desire to move abroad, was released by Arsene Wenger prematurely in 2006. Much to the Frenchman’s annoyance, the defender ended up joining Portsmouth.
Ornstein says that Arsenal haven’t yet stripped Koscielny of the captaincy but he also says that the player will be in breach of his contract if he doesn’t turn up for training.
If he has any intention of leaving through the front door – and let’s not be naive about this, he will now move – Koscielny will be expected at London Colney this week. No doubt, Steve Bould will be waiting for him.
Tragic to see our captain potentially leaving under these circumstances
Why are the long serving good players in a haste to leave the club.. Thinking out loud
For the same reason Gazedis jumped…..
Gazidis left because he was about to get collard for being quite possibly the worst CEO humanly possible..
To be fair, none of our players helped fulfill the duties of CEO either! 😉
The duties of the CEO stretch far further than the results on the pitch. Although he is ultimately also responsible for them as well…
Gazidis also pocketed millions when Kroenke took over completely. Basically the terms of his contract changed due to ownership being 100% in one person’s hands and he had a window of opportunity to leave, with payment.
Because this isn’t a club any more. It’s just a badly run corporate shambles.
Clearly, they have been frustrated about the so-called “project” that Kroenke mentioned. No ambition, full of lies.
I am not surprised if Edu and Sallehi both quits after meeting Kroenke at the US.
Quite simple really – money. If you had an offer to move back to your home country on a 3 year deal and live in a great region like Bordeaux at the age of 33 and with a dodgy achilles then you would do it every time.
Maybe he can donate some of the money offered to him to buy out his contract then, rather than trying to force us in to letting him go for free?
Maybe he’ll do just that. He’s entitled to do so.
Read somewhere he is willing to buy-out his own contract of £5M to go..
Same here. I’m not holding my breath though. If he was willing to do that then he’d just do it without going on strike. This is all a game to try to force the club to release him free/cheap.
Probably
Good
I also read that the club said not to worry and when the deadline to do that had passed slapped a £10 million transfer fee on him. If that is the truth then it’s spiteful and I’m not surprised he’s upset.
Absolutely. It’s his choice and other players has done it before. If he’s so desperate, then he should buy out his contract. If not that he had injury towards the end of last season, he would have left as he said. Yet the club nursed and supported him through this horrible ordeal, so the least he can do is to respect and honour his contract with the club or buy it out. The Wenger era of doing financial favours are gone. The club is in a financial deep shit of its own to continue with such.
Definitely, something wrong with our Arsenal. A long serving captain act and behave like this isn’t normal at all. Maybe someone push him to go out and ask for big compensation?
I think we should just accept now that we have a curse of the Arsenal captain’s armband. Mustafi for Captain!
Craptain Mustafi
”Captain” – On paper maybe. On the pitch not so much. Especially last season.
Good news! This may force the club to buy a confirmed CB, renegociate to have Saliba this season. For me, we have Bielik, Chambers, Mavropanos and can bring Saliba in. In addition to Papas, two of them will come good and the manager is paid to identify these two.
Somebody woke up on the right side of the bed this morning.
I’ll have what Titi’s having.
Thought we wanted good proven cb’s…….. bielik, mavra, chambers ? smh its fine tho, they’re young and deserve a chance, i didn’t know sympathy would improve our defensive record.
And you forgot to mention Rob Holding??
The captain leaving a sinking ship. Symbolic.
Allow him leave please
under no circumstances should we let him leave without receiving a fee. If he were injured he would fully expect us to pay his contract. We have to be more ruthless with players if we want to return to the top = you don’t allow players to leave for free- particularly when we have very few solid options at CB.
We have to get some sort of a fee. But we won’t see him again, otherwise. Player power is now all encompassing and Kos has kicked his last ball for us.
My worry is whether we get a replacement. Or more likely – we don’t ?
Will be sorry to see him leave but we do have a replacement called Chambers
Sorry, but I disagree. Chambers has not proven himself capable of that level yet. If Holding gets back to the form he had before his ACL, he’s closer. Even with Kos’s dodgy achilles and at 33 he’s had a step on Chambers when it matters up until the tail end of last season.
It’s not even about being ruthless. He’s under contract and unless he wants to sit his last year out it’ll cost X amount of money for him to move on. It’s fair.
How much money do you think we’re going to get for a half-crocked 33 year old?
Not much. It’s a matter of principle rather than money.
Bordeaux, where he reportedly wants to go, just sold their CB Jules Koundé for 25m euros.
Why should we give them a free replacement?
Hahahaha, what so now that we’ve shafted ourselves out of the 60 odd million we’ve let walk for free in Ramsey and Welbeck we simply MUST take a stand and not let the half crocked 33 year old koscielny go for anything less than his massive market value of 1 elneny or 2 and a half Jenkinsons.
Yeah good old Arsenal always staying strong where it really matters.
One way or another the policy has got to change in this direction.
With the mooted pocket lint we’ve got to use this window, every few million counts. And he’s got to be worth a few million at the very least.
Yeah let’s make an example out of that notorious ne’er do well Koscielny. Let Mesut Ozil, Mustafi, Carl Jenkinson, Elneny, Granit Xhaka, Kolasinac and Mhkitaryan no if they think they are leaving on anyone terms but Arsenals, they’ve got another thing coming!
Just because we’ve let a few prize horses bolt in the past is no reason not to shut the stable door.
Stop being sarcastic. If this current club management wakes up to it’s responsibility and chose to stop doing father Christmas with the club’s rights and money, then good. Obviously, they have to start with someone and there’s no bigger fish than Kol to start stamping their feet down. We are still bemourning the Ozil contract that Gazadis dolled out and then jumped ship. Enough!
Ramsey and Wlebeck had ZERO years remaining on their contract, Kos still has ONE year of contract remaining out of a 3 year contract that the club offered to him at 31years of age, thus making an exception for him out of respect fr his service ro the club.
Can we ship him out to St. Etienne so Saliba can play for us this season?
Good plan man
Celtic reported want a extra 7 million on our offer for k.t. Left back . That 7m would do…
Absolutely
What a terrible way to end your great legacy with the club…
Why? He signed the contract and as much as the club are expected to honor their end of the bargain so are the players. If he want’s to leave, find a club that meets the valuation or he could buy himself out of the contract. Feel sorry that Kos are ending his stay with us in this way as he’s been one of the top players and characters for the last ten years. Will never doubt his commitment but I now doubt his judgement and his agent are, no doubt, a complete cunt. I will respect him when he leaves… Read more »
Really? ” … one of the top players”! Look at the record and you’ll see he was present for most of the drubbings that have littered the last nine years.
Nope. Dude needs to buy out his contract if he wants to leave. ~£5m please Lolo.
I believe that he tried.
Ah, fond memories of Sol “going abroad” to the south coast! Takes the edge off this unfortunate story, at least…
Guess we can expect the signing of Saliba to be made official soon, as a way for the club to try and appease the fans following this debacle..
This summer is mad.
Dear worried fans, fret not! Even though Laurent is leaving us, next season we will have Saliba replace him!#FuckTheTraitor#NewYoungHope
“But who will replace him this season?”
I’m sorry that’s all the time we have! Don’t forget to visit the Arsenal store for the retro Adidas jerseys guys! #WeRunNorfLandan#ArsenalFamily#GiveUsYourMoney
Chambers
About time Chambers was given a decent run again.
Watch it happen: Mustafi takes number 6, Xhaka and Ozil will be named captain and vice captains, the club extends the contracts of Mustafi and Xhaka.
And we finish 8th.
You can’t really think Chambers is good enough?
Just exchange him with Saliba
Thought he had a bit more class than that to be honest
Me too. It does make you wonder what’s been going on behind the scenes.
The least diva-like player and he wants to leave. What does this say about his relationship with Emery?
How many of our best players left us under Wenger? What did that say about their relationship with him?
You were always quick to defend Wenger in this kind of situation. Now that you don’t like the current manager, it must be his fault.
How convenient.
Agreed. Additionally doesn’t matter if you have a bad relationship with the manager… do the fucking job you’re being paid a lot of money to do. Always loved Koscielny but this is a big stain on his copybook for me.
There are questions all-round on this, guess we’ll find out more in the coming days.
But if this means we stop getting dicked on by players, agents, and other clubs, then I see it as a positive development.
This just goes to show how this club is being run, no one has got a clue! The absent owner and rest following suit….
Other than making this public (very unArsenal) I don’t see what the club have gone wrong here. His market value is probably £5-10m – why on earth should we just let him go for nothing???
I don’t understand the criticism of making this public, it’s not as if the fan’s, press etc wouldn’t have noticed him not on the tour. There’s only one person to blame here and that’s Koscielny.
We are now run by Americans and the ‘Barcelona Spanish man, , both known for being ruthless in dealings. Barcelona is successful
Kronoke was successful, well he managed to buy afc
Kos has been a great servant to Arsenal and I have a lot of respect for him, this needs to be nipped in the bud ASAP. you can’t have one of the dressing room leaders act this way. Make an example of him so that the rest know this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.
He’s gone mate. There’s no coming back from this.
I would let him sit out rest of season playing for under 23’s and have him see out his contract… If we give in and let him go now, whats to stop a younger more valuable player doing the same thing.
I like Kos, I really do, and it sucks the club have not granted his request to be let out of his contract early. You can not how ever give in cause he has thrown his toys out of the pram.
I think I’d rather avoid having to pay his wages for a year (a few million?), and negotiate a deal to sell him on for a nominal fee. In that way, he gets to leave, and we (at least) get ‘some’ cash for a player who is still under contract. I really dislike talking about Kos in this way, because he’s not a material object – he’s a person – and verging on being an Arsenal legend in my eyes… but there is a fair way to do this if he truly wants to move. I’m not sure leaving for… Read more »
Can’t believe how many are defending Koscielny if I’m honest. I can think of very few scenarios where this isn’t solely on him. He’s our fucking captain- whether they’ve screwed him over or not, he should not be destabilising the club even further than it already is. He’d been one of my favourite ever Arsenal players until today. No longer.
He deserves the support he’s getting because he did play through Achilles tendinitis for a long time when another club would’ve probably rotated him a little more to manage the issue better. That resulted in an Achilles tear and him missing out on a world cup medal. Then, we brought him back last season when he didn’t look like he had fully recovered. The first two games he played, pretty much everyone wrote him off as finished. Then he got better enough to where people still consider him one of the best CBs at the club now. If he feels… Read more »
Then surely he should have developed this ability to tell the club to do one back then, with genuine reason, rather than leave us floundering now a month out from the beginning of a season that noone seems up for? It’s the move of a 20 year old player above his station, not a 34 year old who’s been supported by the club for a decade. I heard news of this on a WhatsApp group first and presumed it do be the bullshit of the daily mail- so so shocked its come out to be true.
We all love the Arsenal and are only concerned about Arsenal’s best interests. For a second maybe we should look at the situation from Kos’ perspective. Maybe he doesn’t see anything good coming of next season. Same old shit for one more year. And he only has maybe a couple of years left in him.
As an Arsenal fan I am pissed off with this move but as a Kos fan I can understand his perspective. We still need to get a fee, he is not walking away for free.
So you’re saying he should have refused to play in the middle of a season when Rob holding was out and we were teetering after a 22 game unbeaten run? Yeah that’s surely the hallmark of a captain. How shameful that he played high level games in what should have been the final stages of his fitness training, and after the end of the season, is asking to leave in the twilight of his career to play at a lower level! Just remember that maybe he knows his limitations well, when our season starts and he’s not as good anymore… Read more »
So he should prioritise his next contract over the one he’s currently playing under? Bizarre opinion. If this were another player, people would be demanding them be fired and the pitchforks would be well and truly out. Again, I’m a huge fan of Koscielny’s (even got his name on the first Puma shirt) but this is so far wide of the mark it’s untrue. If this had happened prior to our ST renewals I’d have chucked mine- why the fuck should I keep paying my money when our CAPTAIN can’t even be bothered? Absolutely gutted.
Look, I get that he’s not going about this nicely but to accuse the guy of ‘not being bothered’ when so far he has put his body on the line every single time he was asked, is unfair. Also, to question that he’s prioritizing the next contract over his current one would also be unfair to his level of professionalism so far. I personally never saw him as a vocal leader. He’s more of a great soldier that does his own duties well, like a Jon snow. Others may look up to him for it, but when he can’t do… Read more »
Body on the line? This is football we’re talking about my friend, not the Army. As far as I’m concerned, he is no more
People feign fake injuries and this guy comes back clearly less than a hundred percent after an Achilles rupture. I’d call that body on the line, army or not.
He’d have been the first to go public on it if we hadn’t given him a new contract. At his age he was no doubt grateful to still be earning a fortune whilst not necessarily playing every week. He would know that his playing time would reduce now. Now he’s found that someone else wants to give him a new contract and chooses pre-season to launch his move and complains that we won’t release him for free!! Unbelievable. If he’s so keen to get away, get the new club to pay up a fee even if it means his wages… Read more »
The way your talking he was doing it for free and it works both ways a lot of clubs wud of got rid of a player with a recurring injuries.
D’oh! BART!
Seriously Kos? My esteem for Ramsey just rose further now. He kept it dignified until the end.
But two of our best players this decade, neither of them ever accused of being prima donnas with big egos who place themselves ahead of the team, both decide to leave.
Decade? 2009 was a long time ago mate.
Ramsey didn’t decide to leave, his offer was retracted. He was forced to look somewhere else.
Bonkers.
This is a bit too much from Kos.
Dont know how to feel about it after he did so much for us last season:/
And our defence is trully fucked now.. If Sokratis gets injured where do we stand? ridiculous
If i can be honest, we are a better team when Rob Holding not injured
How has he only won 2 FA cups? What happened to his 3rd? In any case, majorly disappointed in this. Probably one of the reasons we are sending Saliba back on loan was to see out the last year of koscielnys contract. Sort of fucks us there doesnt he.
He was injured. Remember our magnificent BFG and Rob Holding owning Diego Costa? Ah, happy days!
Was he not suspended??
You got me thinking there (an iffy memory is a terrible thing!) but I’m pretty sure he picked up his Achilles injury in a Europa League just before the FA Cup Final.
Yes. That’s why Holding played and (memories of how brilliant he was at winding up Diego Costa notwithstanding) was saved over and over by Mertesacker.
Yes suspended . V silly red card.
Tho helped us.
In the big games he often bottled, kicked past on keeper v bit,Ingram cup final, kicked in own face v Madrid, athletics, played Shen lost 6-0 to Chelsea (8-2 v utd ?)
Tho scored winning head last day of season at Newcastle to finish above spuds and top four,
Sell him for 7 m, and use money got new signing
Hats off to you, it was a suspension. It was *last season’s* Europa League in which he was injured. Bloody years, blending in to each other..!
And by last season I mean 2017/18, not the one that’s just finished.
(Oh hell, I give up!)
If this is his agent recommending his absence, its despicable. And Kos listening is both surprising and disappointing to say the least. I had so much respect, but this is wrong. Maybe he viewed the club as Arsene FC instead of Arsenal FC.
Unless you’re injured/death of family member/arsenal refusing to pay his wage/just came back from international duty, there is no way to justify this kind of behavior, especially from the club captain. So much for playing for the badge lmao. I guess alexis was right when he said that kosc is not captain material.
And it’s harsh but Deschamps was right to drop him from France’s WC squad. The players didn’t need him, and the fact he didn’t command enough respect in the dressing room to at least merit traveling with the squad spoke volumes.
That is ridiculous. Deschamps “dropped” him because he literally could not walk at the time. If you watch Deschamps naming the squad, he specifically talks about how Koscielny would have played if he were not injured–he brings this up twice.
Like I said, it’s harsh on Koscielny, but for example Benjamin Mendy was injured all season and still made the squad.
There was a big outcry when Deschamps announced the final 23 with so many young players, and so many big names left out. He said he wanted “less experience, more ambition”.
So it’s not 100% certain Koscielny would’ve gone even if he’d been fully fit.
“I guess alexis was right when he said that kosc is not captain material” when did he say this
Some how gets a creepy feeling that the whole episode is managed by the club and player….. to woo potential suitors
Cant see the captain being irresponsible
To all those saying Koscielny gave us everything: he was a nobody who we signed and turned into a French international and a name known throughout Europe. We could have ditched him after his disastrous first 18 months (during which he cost us a League Cup that would have broken our trophy duck, at a time when we were top of the league) but we stuck with him. His HUGE mistake gave Atlético their away goal and imo stopped us winning the Europa at the first attempt. Obviously he has been very good for us overall, but he’s not a… Read more »
Even if he was a club legend, I doubt that’s the way he’ll be seen now.
I agree with some of your sentiments but Kos is still a legend to me. (I reserve the right to revise my opinion as more details on this story emerge.)
I say this because of his professionalism, his willingness to put his body on the line and for being, for long periods, our more consistent and reliable defender.
He’s also a decent guy, by all accounts. He donated over half a million to save a factory in his home town yet he always strikes me as humble and unassuming. This makes this sorry story all the more shocking.
Agreed RedCurrant it makes the story extremely troubling because it seems so out of left field/ out of character for the individual. I agree with Spanish Gooner as well we have to stand firm and deal with this with some balls….disagree about him not being a legend I know it’s an opinion but based off recent times..to me he is a club legend but this form of action probably/definitely tarnished that status
Well, wasn’t it him that was rumoured to be fighting with Alexis in training? And wasn’t it him that supposedly cried at a team-only meeting during a crisis when players needed a strong captain?
Let’s be honest, it’s not that far out of left-field for him.
He’s totally overrated by many on this board and has been at the heart of all our major loses since the 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford
Yep. As much as we love him now, we can’t forget that at one stage his rep for calamitous errors was almost as bad as Mustafi’s.
He looked good alongside Mertesacker for awhile or probably more accurately Mertesacker made him look good. Looked weak and lightweight alongside Vermaelen, Gabriel and Mustafi.
Well, it makes a change to unravel before the start of the season I guess.
I’m fucking bored of next season already. This club is fucked.
We certainly have problems but losing Kos is far from the greatest. We do have Chambers coming back
How many times have we stood by a seriously injured player only for them to turn around and publicly fuck us in the arse. I love Kos but he’s our fucking captain and should behave as such. Whether he thinks his body won’t hold up, whether he wants a big payday, whether the club offered to let him go and have backtracked, none of that matters, what matters is Arsenal and what you represent as the captain of this club. Fuck him, get shot and move on. What a shame it had to end this way. Holding, Sokritis, Beilik, Chambers… Read more »
I think Kos was one of our best players in the last 10 years and deserved to be the captain, but this situation is unacceptable.
We, he, everyone knows how dire is Arsenal’s financial situation, so why on Earth the club should release him whilst AFC could fetch EUR 5-7M for him.
I mean, I do appreciate all he has done for Arsenal, but this is business and the club own no favor to him. Simple as that.
I agree, they should not have to let him go on a free.
Would St. Etienne want him?
This is tragic and just confirms our joke club status to many. Not a good look in the transfer market.
Why blame the club? Sadly this is completely the doing of Kos
How can you be certain of that?
Are the club refusing to pay him? No. Only one party is in breach of contract and going on strike here and it’s not the club.
Sorry, can’t throw a man with 9 years of top service to the club under the bus without hearing his side of the story. Especially when most of the others on the other side have not served the club so long or so well.
Disappointing…club legend status REVOKED!
Chop his Koc off!!!
Was probably promised a move last year, has been told he can’t so is now downing tools…
If only it was mesut or mustafi
Would you even notice the difference if it was Mesut??
If Steve Bould was ‘waiting for me’ I’d be inclined to arrive promptly, if not several hours early.
But seriously, this is a sad ending to the Arsenal career of a player I’ve always looked up to and admired.
As an aside – and this is not intended as some nostalgic ‘whataboutery’ – I do wonder if the problem would have played out so publicly if Wenger was manager.
You ever die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain…
Don’t really know what to make of this TBH. Kos doesn’t really owe us anything at this stage, has always been the ultimate pro before this situation and always gave his best on the pitch with often crucial moments of play. I think the injury a little over a year ago has played on his mind a bit and it was clear he was struggling a bit toward the end of last season; he doesn’t fancy doing that again and wants to play at a lower level which is understandable enough. He’s 33 after all. However he IS still under… Read more »
He owes the final year of his contract that he signed.
Ideally yes, but it’s clear he’s not up for it and we really shouldn’t be relying on a player who’s 34 in September anyway.
He gave us 9 good years and put his body on the line, he should see out his contract but he’s, or more to the point, his body clearly has had enough at this level and it is somewhat understandable.
Not only ‘ideally’: legally, contractually, morally and professionally he owes us what he agreed to provide. We gave him an awful lot too; turned him into an international, made him the name he is, stuck by him through injury and his many brain-melts that cost us trophies. I don’t think it is clear that he’s not up to the job – hence other clubs are willing to take him or not. But even if that were the case, he still doesn’t get to decide. The only way he can choose to leave on his terms is by buying off the… Read more »
I take your point but this isn’t as black and white as that though. It’s clear now in Wenger’s final season he wanted to call quits but he either decided to stay on or was given some assurances by the club that he could seek a future elsewhere in time. I rather suspect that the later was the case. Kos has or had been one of the top defenders in the top flight for nearly a decade, let’s not go down the revisionist route here; he stayed loyal to the club whilst at his peak and easily one of our… Read more »
He couldn’t move last summer because he was banjaxed, not because he decided to stay out of the kindness of his heart.
It amazes me that people do not support the clubs stance on this. We are not a charity, neither is Kos. Enough of players dragging our name through the mud by showing they are bigger than the club.
And we thought those heroic efforts in the second half of last season were for the club – looks like he might have just been trying to catch the eye of potential suitors and attract a lucrative bosman deal.
How much money are we talking here? Bearing in mind he’s an injury prone player in the twilight of his career with one year left on his contract. A couple of million? A bit more, a bit less? Anyone not willing to stump up a small fee like that to get a player of Kos’ quality for a year or two shouldnt be taken seriously anyway.
Pay up or move on!
Exactly! £5-10m is probably his market value and i’m sure we’d drop a couple of million because of his loyalty (before today!).
I agree. £1-3 mio should be a fair price. I think he is worth more to us, but if he does not want to stay and help out then so be it.
I think the pace of the French or maybe even Spanish league would suit him better at this stage in his career. I wish him all the best if he goes but I hope he goes the right way and not under a cloud.
How did we end up like this? 🙁
So this is the kind of person who has captained our side for so long. Not everyone is captain material.
Transparency is gone from this club. God knows what’s going on behind the doors of our Walmarsenal front office.
I get the feeling there might be more to this than meets the eye. It’s very unlike Kos to down tools. Was he promised a free if he gave us another season? He was close to packing it in when Arsene left. With this board in charge nothing would surprise me. I think it could be another contract / agreement fcuk up by our esteemed club management.
Why would you conclude that based on what you do know? There was talk of him wanting a new challenge last summer but then he got injured and nobody wanted him. I’m quite sure that we’d have happily sold him if a club offered us a decent fee for him, given that he was out until Xmas. Did Koscielny do the club any favours then by offering to cancel his contract? Did he balls. The club don’t appear to have done anything wrong here but it’s interesting how every story is now being twisted as a criticism of the club… Read more »
Can already see him not only playing this season but probably captaining the team again by mid October :/
To be fair he’s bit past it now, at fault for quite few goals in the short games he played last season, bye bye fair well
He knows we’re gonna have another shit season and doesn’t want to be part of it,, the ship is sinking and he’s jumping,,
Nothing to do with that.
He’s 33 pushing 34 with plenty of injuries.
he knows he has to make way.
He’s actually doing us a service.
Disappointing news considering Kos’ exemplary service to the club to date. Tells me that maybe before the end of last season they had a deal in place to let him go but then losing out on the CL money forced a rethink from the club. If that’s the case I’d be pissed off if I was Kos, however that doesn’t mean he should force an exit this way. I mean FFS he could suck it up for another 6 months and have his bosman in place by the January window….methinks he’s being badly advised.
In a recent Arsecast Extra Blogs and James were talking when it is the time to panic this summer. THE TIME HAS COME!
Seriously, like everyone has already said, unbelieveble stuff from someone I really, really respect(ed).
Why the past tense?
He should still deserve respect.
And this was far from unpredictable.
It should have come sooner truth be told. He held another season for us.
Now he is making way which is the right thing to do.
Respect.
The past tense was in brackets, because I’m not sure anymore, this was such a disappointment. This is not a behaviour of a classy club captain, however you want to look at it. Something is wrong here.
If he wants to buy himself out of the last year of his contract that seems like a reasonable compromise.
If they try and keep him and compromise on who we bring in from market at Cback, try to keep him going for another season, it will be a huge mistake and a massive indictment on the ambition of this club.
He´s french – what did you expect? Evra anyone – world cup 2010?
Joke´s aside, if you cant terminate your contract – you´ll have to honour it.
This is ridiculous. It’d be one thing to hand in a transfer request. Throwing your toys out of the pram and foregoing your contractual obligations is something else altogether.
Strip him of the captaincy and bench him for the remainder of his contract. Awful behaviour.
Nobody is stripping Koscielny of his captaincy. He will relinquish it himself. Its the sensible thing to do beyond sentimentality which unfortunately plagues too many fans and clouds their judgement. At 33yrs, he has given us great service but wear and tear issues will prevent him from regular feature. We need to make room for replacement. BUT if we should waste our efforts with an unproven young player who has to be loaned back out (for an eventual substantial sum which will complicate resale should he prove false), then we are not doing Koscielny’s departure justice. Truth be told he… Read more »
ffs, I’d rather choke on a broken record than read anymore of your repetitive drivel.
He was never captain material, not performance wise or a true leader. This here now seals the deal. If he wants to go home, a club needs to pay the fee, that’s how it works.
If any player really, really, wants to leave a club there’s very little that the club can do about it other than let him go. Keeping a disgruntled player against his wishes does nothing for morale – keeping a captain on in those circumstances is a disaster waiting to happen. In this case, assuming the story is correct, it’s also a pointer that there’s something seriously wrong behind the scenes at The Emirates. For example, there were several reports last season of dressing room unrest directed at Ozil because of his inconsistent performances coupled with his wage-structure busting £350,000 a… Read more »
Get rid of the flats move back to Highbury and bring back David Dean,,, pretty please
If I’m him I’m thinking – “OK, I’m 33. (At least until I turn 34, I suppose.) Achilles is dodgy. Losing my step. I’m here at a club starting a young rebuild, with slim chances of pulling down any silverware, with 1 year left on my contract. Nothing gonna happen for me in that year. Some bench time, no big shots at anything of consequence I can see, really. This league isn’t going to let me finish out my career peacefully. More abuse from the stands, and physically on the pitch. “Oh, what’s that? Bordeaux? Quite lovely there. I’m French,… Read more »
I must admit, many of the replies on here disappoint me. In someways, perhaps it is a reflection of the age we live in, when grown men on here discuss matters more familiar to young children. What little information that is out there, is barely being discussed..instead its all “how dare he…good riddance…he’s shit anyway..” Based on information on the Guardian website, what appears to have happened is that Koscielny had a 2 yr contract, which expired this summer, with the club having an option to extend for a further year. It would appear that the club chose to activate… Read more »
Comon, players don’t even respect their own legacy anymore. Sad
The shit show continues.
It is unbelievable how badly run this club is. This shouldn’t even be an issue, he should be allowed to leave but because we are so inept at recruitment we are totally reliant on a burnt out 33 year old defender.
Are you talking about The Arsenal? This is but a mere blip in our illustrious history — form is temporary, class is permanent my dear fellow and we will rule again. Have faith my friends, for we are The Arsenal…
Victoria Concordia Crescit
Lest us not forget…
Too many fans have forgotten “Victory Through Harmony” that’s the problem. They allow themselves to be drawn into the “politics” and have forgotten why they started supporting Arsenal. The founding fathers could never have envisioned that their love for the game of football would spawn a club that has a worldwide following, that would achieve success and glory, but would also give back to the community in which it was formed as well as helping projects around the globe. There’s no doubt that our team is not a title challenging team right now, but that’s not why I support Arsenal.… Read more »
Kos has earned my respect over the years and he wont lose it over this. There must be a good reason why he is doing this.
Completely irrelevant to this post but just got to say that Tim Stillman’s articles are brilliant and immensely enjoyable. Keep up the great work blogs & Tim ?