In light of Rob Holding’s potentially serious knee injury, Unai Emery was asked about a possible return date for Laurent Koscielny.
The Frenchman stepped up his comeback from the Achilles injury he suffered in May with 85 minutes for the under-23s in their Checkatrade Trophy defeat to Portsmouth on Tuesday.
Despite cramp forcing him off in the final stages, it looks as though he’s come through unscathed and is now ready to challenge for a spot in the first team.
“Laurent is very close to playing for us,” confirmed Emery after the 2-2 draw with Manchester United.
“He played two matches for the under-23s – the last one was on Tuesday.
“When are we thinking he will start playing with us? I don’t know if Saturday is a possibility, but we’re thinking the Europa League game against Qarabag could be a good match for him.”
Given his invaluable experience, it’ll be great to have our club captain back. Of course, he’ll have to get used to our new policy of building play from the back but that, even though he’s 33, shouldn’t be beyond him.
It’ll also be interesting to see if, in Holding absence, we continue to play with a three at the back. We’re low on personnel to keep doing that, although Nacho Monreal, now that he’s fit again, is another option there.
Could definitely do with more cover after Rob’s injury.
But perhaps a bit soon for PL games for Kos? Perhaps Lichsteiner or even Monreal could do a job in the back 3?..
Totally missed the last sentence.. Beat me to it.
Monreal has played there before and looked good. Maybe we’ll see two at the back with Kos and sokratis, I think they could be very good together.
Phew, good timing with the unfortunate Holding out for a while it looks.
Hope his cramp is easily dealt with and we can see Kos the boss for the rest of the season.
Can’t get him back quick enough. Also, Monreal is such a fantastic and sometimes under-rated player. At least some of our defensive frailties will be helped enormously by the return of these two.
Nacho gets the plaudits from arsenal supporters. We all know how good he is.
I don’t think Emery will start putting square pegs in round holes, if he can’t find 3 fit centre backs? He’ll just adjust the way we lineup to suit the players at his disposal
Hmm, it looks like em has got a lot of shopping to do in january
Is there a recall clause in Callum Chambers’ loan deal?
Don’t think we need to do that.
Just need to know where Mavros is.
Yesterday Jeorg Bird mentioned on twitter that Dinos should be back playing this month
*Jeorge
why do we?
I think that’s a perfectly valid question. When he was loaned out he was our best central defender
he is playing well at Fulham too
Respectfully disagree. He hasnt looked great in fulham and he played cdm on the weekend, and made several errors in dangerous places. He seems mentally fragile and not a good fit for this team and style
Hope not.
From having all the CBacks, to being a bit light back there. Don’t think we need to sign anybody next month as then we’ll too many the CBacks.
Yes, I agree with you. However we should add a good CB in the summer window.
Will be great to have Kos back and yes he should be able to easily adapt to playing out of the back as I am sure he did a lot of that with France and it’s not like we previously just launched long balls downfield the whole time under Wenger. Just have to make sure he is not overused too early. Getting Monreal back will be huge as he can certainly play in the left side of three in the back or outside with four in the back as he has always done. I don’t recall seeing him as a… Read more »
We almost never launched long balls under Wenger. Koscielny has always been a ball-playing centre half for us. It is the keeper’s role that has really changed under Emery in this respect, not the central defenders’.
Yep, i believe you are right. While its not been a formalised/official way of playing like now, Arsene is a ball playing coach that likes his teams playing football on the ground and detests lumping ball forward, hence in the latter years of his reign, when things werent working the way it should, his teams often get criticised for overplaying. I personally believe it is this heritage that is helping the players cope better in adapting to Emery’s way
we still need a right winger ,a number 3 and a strong and active ,inteligent central defender and another defensive midfielder. for Arsenal to fight for pL TITLE.
Very much looking forward to having Monreal and Koscielny back, fully fit and ready for the big games. Given how significant that pair have been in recent years, performances by the team look even more impressive.
Imagine 12 month ago if someone told you we would take 4 points from Spores and Manure without Kos, Monreal, Alexis, Giroud, Ozil, Xhaka or even Walcott on the squad ?
Or Wenger ?
Or we could go
Monreal – Monreal – Monreal – Monreal
At the back
Methinks it could work very well
We only switched to back 3 because of Kolasinac’s defensive doubts. If Monreal is back, we should go back to a back 4 with Sokratis and Kos/Mustafi. Purely because we can’t afford to lose another CB since Holding’s injury appears to be more than a month long since the word ‘serious’ is being thrown around it.
And I would say time to get Laca to try the 10 role Bergkamp style, real second striker. Ramsey, Iwobi, Mkhitaryan, Ozil can provide width depending on fixtures.
Think Laca is better than Ozil on the wings and vice versa
Bosscielny is back!!!