Laurent Koscielny

[DeGea Loves Doughnuts]

You must be a manU or chelsea fan, because to say he is not barca standard is funny. Arsenal had the 2nd best defence this season and kosh was one of the reasons for that. When he came back into arsenals team after they lost to spurs they never lost a game. Even before that at the start before injury he was a beast. IMO he better than all our CB. My bro told me only theo is faster than him and he is a ball playing CB who reads the game well with an eye for goal. Look at some youtube clips of this season and i garantee you will change your mind

Indeed i am a Manchester United fan, although quite what difference that makes i dont know? am i not allowed to have an opinion on him because of this? are you claiming i have some strange dislike/bias against him for this reason? i can assure you i dont i have no reason to hate Arsenal whatsoever so my views are my genuine opinions.

Ive watched Koscielny in England for years, ive seen a lot of him from his very first day, hes a good defender most of the time, hes not a world beater and hes certainly not in the calibre of centre halfs id usually associate with Barcelona no, Granted Barca are light in that position at the moment and given that situation hed likely be an improvement (most would over a young kid like Batra or a left wing back like Adriano) but id have thought there'd be a host of other names ahead of Koscielnys on Barcas list and im sure there are.

Saying Arsenal had the second best defensive record and using it as some ringing endorsement dosnt say much tbh, the standard of defending in England was atrocious last season, we won the league by a landslide despite shipping 30 goals in our first 19 games! a record that was the worst in our history! and we ended the season with one of the better defensive records in the league! that tells you the standard of defending wasn't very high so at best you could say arsenals defence was one of the better of a bad bunch which isnt saying much, they only just scrambled 4th place to by the way.

Not saying he's a bad player at all, just not someone id see as a Barcelona player, i can think of a dozen better centre halfs they could sign and others even in north london id have over him.

 

[Barcilliant]

Indeed i am a Manchester United fan, although quite what difference that makes i dont know? am i not allowed to have an opinion on him because of this? are you claiming i have some strange dislike/bias against him for this reason? i can assure you i dont i have no reason to hate Arsenal whatsoever so my views are my genuine opinions.

Ive watched Koscielny in England for years, ive seen a lot of him from his very first day, hes a good defender most of the time, hes not a world beater and hes certainly not in the calibre of centre halfs id usually associate with Barcelona no, Granted Barca are light in that position at the moment and given that situation hed likely be an improvement (most would over a young kid like Batra or a left wing back like Adriano) but id have thought there'd be a host of other names ahead of Koscielnys on Barcas list and im sure there are.

Saying Arsenal had the second best defensive record and using it as some ringing endorsement dosnt say much tbh, the standard of defending in England was atrocious last season, we won the league by a landslide despite shipping 30 goals in our first 19 games! a record that was the worst in our history! and we ended the season with one of the better defensive records in the league! that tells you the standard of defending wasn't very high so at best you could say arsenals defence was one of the better of a bad bunch which isnt saying much, they only just scrambled 4th place to by the way.

Not saying he's a bad player at all, just not someone id see as a Barcelona player, i can think of a dozen better centre halfs they could sign and others even in north london id have over him.

Please name these dozen cbs who are better?

 

[Barcilliant]

Indeed i am a Manchester United fan, although quite what difference that makes i dont know? am i not allowed to have an opinion on him because of this? are you claiming i have some strange dislike/bias against him for this reason? i can assure you i dont i have no reason to hate Arsenal whatsoever so my views are my genuine opinions.

Ive watched Koscielny in England for years, ive seen a lot of him from his very first day, hes a good defender most of the time, hes not a world beater and hes certainly not in the calibre of centre halfs id usually associate with Barcelona no, Granted Barca are light in that position at the moment and given that situation hed likely be an improvement (most would over a young kid like Batra or a left wing back like Adriano) but id have thought there'd be a host of other names ahead of Koscielnys on Barcas list and im sure there are.

Saying Arsenal had the second best defensive record and using it as some ringing endorsement dosnt say much tbh, the standard of defending in England was atrocious last season, we won the league by a landslide despite shipping 30 goals in our first 19 games! a record that was the worst in our history! and we ended the season with one of the better defensive records in the league! that tells you the standard of defending wasn't very high so at best you could say arsenals defence was one of the better of a bad bunch which isnt saying much, they only just scrambled 4th place to by the way.

Not saying he's a bad player at all, just not someone id see as a Barcelona player, i can think of a dozen better centre halfs they could sign and others even in north london id have over him.

Please name these dozen cbs who are better?

 

[DeGea Loves Doughnuts]

Please name these dozen cbs who are better?

You want me to name a dozen Centre backs better than Koscielny? ok:

Rio Ferdinand
Nemanja Vidic
Vincent Kompany
Matija Nastasic
Jan Vertonghen
Rafael Varane
Thiago Silva
Gerard Pique
Girgiou Chiellini
Sergio Ramos
Dante
Mats Hummels

Thats 12 off the top of my head, of course this is just my opinion, you may disagree, id have all of those in my team before i had Koscielny, theres also some really talented young defenders like Mangala and Zouma who look potentially great players and people like John Terry who atleast when fit are still good players id have before Koscielny.

 

[Irish_Cules]

Ye its hard to argue against that list. Koscielny played brilliantly for the second half of the season and he is defiantly one of the best centre backs in the world in that form. He hasn't been at that level for his whole Arsenal career though. If he keeps up his current form though then perhaps not so many of those defenders will be considered superior.

 

[Ghost]

Gerard Pique

Nah..

 

[Barcilliant]

You want me to name a dozen Centre backs better than Koscielny? ok:

Rio Ferdinand
Nemanja Vidic
Vincent Kompany
Matija Nastasic
Jan Vertonghen
Rafael Varane
Thiago Silva
Gerard Pique
Girgiou Chiellini
Sergio Ramos
Dante
Mats Hummels

Thats 12 off the top of my head, of course this is just my opinion, you may disagree, id have all of those in my team before i had Koscielny, theres also some really talented young defenders like Mangala and Zouma who look potentially great players and people like John Terry who atleast when fit are still good players id have before Koscielny.

No to Dante, Pique, Ferdinand, Vidic and Nastasic! Pique has been awful for 2 seasons. Ferdinand waaay past his best ditto Vidic. Dante has only had one good season. To be honest never saw or heard about him before. Nastasic still not at Koscieny level. Maybe Mangala. Never seen Zouma or at least cant remember him to be honest.

 

[AvocadoCake]

No to Dante, Pique, Ferdinand, Vidic and Nastasic! Pique has been awful for 2 seasons. Ferdinand waaay past his best ditto Vidic. Dante has only had one good season. To be honest never saw or heard about him before. Nastasic still not at Koscieny level. Maybe Mangala. Never seen Zouma or at least cant remember him to be honest.

Dante was BRILLIANT for Gladbach, just because you didn't know doesn't mean he "only had one good season"/

 

[DeGea Loves Doughnuts]

No to Dante, Pique, Ferdinand, Vidic and Nastasic! Pique has been awful for 2 seasons. Ferdinand waaay past his best ditto Vidic. Dante has only had one good season. To be honest never saw or heard about him before. Nastasic still not at Koscieny level. Maybe Mangala. Never seen Zouma or at least cant remember him to be honest.

Ferdinand had an excellent season in a United side that was crippled in defence for most of it we were having to play Michael Carrick at cenre half at times which proves the point, Ferdinand was voted by all parties (both players and writers) in the Premier league team of the season, he was better than Koscielny and at his best it really isnt a contest, Vidic is a mountain honestly i can only assume you didnt watch him at all last season, before he came back we had conceded 30 goals in our opening 19 league games, Vidic came back and we went the best part of 3 months with conceding 1 league goal! when fit i wouldnt swap Vidic for anyone.

You say Dante has had 1 good season, firstly thats not even true and secondly i could say Koscielnys had only 6 good months, you cant pick and chose arguments when they suit then ignore them when they dont, i doubt a single Bayern fan would consider swapping Dante for Koscielny if you asked them, Bayerns defence was breaking records left right and centre last season with Dante their most consistent defender.

Im not saying Koscielnys as bad player, he did end the season with Arsenal very well, and is by in large a good defender, my point was this is Barcelona were talking about here, one of the biggest clubs in the world and in the top 2 best teams in the world, im sure they could find a much better player than Laurent Koscielny.

 

[Meitux]

Ferdinand had an excellent season in a United side that was crippled in defence for most of it we were having to play Michael Carrick at cenre half at times which proves the point, Ferdinand was voted by all parties (both players and writers) in the Premier league team of the season, he was better than Koscielny and at his best it really isnt a contest, Vidic is a mountain honestly i can only assume you didnt watch him at all last season, before he came back we had conceded 30 goals in our opening 19 league games, Vidic came back and we went the best part of 3 months with conceding 1 league goal! when fit i wouldnt swap Vidic for anyone.

You say Dante has had 1 good season, firstly thats not even true and secondly i could say Koscielnys had only 6 good months, you cant pick and chose arguments when they suit then ignore them when they dont, i doubt a single Bayern fan would consider swapping Dante for Koscielny if you asked them, Bayerns defence was breaking records left right and centre last season with Dante their most consistent defender.

Im not saying Koscielnys as bad player, he did end the season with Arsenal very well, and is by in large a good defender, my point was this is Barcelona were talking about here, one of the biggest clubs in the world and in the top 2 best teams in the world, im sure they could find a much better player than Laurent Koscielny.

Still,Ferdinand is 34 nobody is interested getting him right now and its logical.I suppose telling those examples doesnt mean you talk about possible targets of Barcelona,just comparing him to Koscienly that is a possible option because afterall some of those players are impossible and some hard to come

 

[ryaninho]

Yes having the 2nd best def in the league does give wieght to what i say. Arsenal strugled after christmas till mid feb when he was out when came back unbeaten run seeing out many #-0 leads. Arsenal were 4 because of too many draws not because the shipped a ton of goals. saying that the pm was bad defensivly I disagree all clubs under the top 4 did not score much. ManU's def was bad this season at one point in the season RVP had saved you like 20pts with his last minute goals. I'm sorry to say Kosh is not a world beater is to look down on him. He has bossed so many of the top class strikers out the game with his pace and reading of the game to the point he forced his way into the france nt set up and most of these cb you mentioned kosh is better than them IMO some are past it and some it's to early to tell.

 

[DeGea Loves Doughnuts]

Yes having the 2nd best def in the league does give wieght to what i say. Arsenal strugled after christmas till mid feb when he was out when came back unbeaten run seeing out many #-0 leads. Arsenal were 4 because of too many draws not because the shipped a ton of goals. saying that the pm was bad defensivly I disagree all clubs under the top 4 did not score much. ManU's def was bad this season at one point in the season RVP had saved you like 20pts with his last minute goals. I'm sorry to say Kosh is not a world beater is to look down on him. He has bossed so many of the top class strikers out the game with his pace and reading of the game to the point he forced his way into the france nt set up and most of these cb you mentioned kosh is better than them IMO some are past it and some it's to early to tell.

We disagree mate thats all, no big deal, i think hes a good player, but if Barcelona are looking at new centre backs i wouldnt have him top of the list if i were in charge thats all.

 

[Robbie]

The stigma of 7 years of a terrible defense is why Koscielny still has some doubters. Guilty by association? I dunno. Some EPL fans just can't see the words "Arsenal" and "good defender" in the same sentence after witnessing the horrors of Senderos, Squillaci, Silvestre, etc.

But if you watch him play, and see how massively we improved when he replaced Vermaelen midseason, then a lot of people would change their minds.

 

[Shegzy]

The stigma of 7 years of a terrible defense is why Koscielny still has some doubters. Guilty by association? I dunno. Some EPL fans just can't see the words "Arsenal" and "good defender" in the same sentence after witnessing the horrors of Senderos, Squillaci, Silvestre, etc.

But if you watch him play, and see how massively we improved when he replaced Vermaelen midseason, then a lot of people would change their minds.

that was how all arsenal fan were shouting vermaelen name two seasons ago that he was one of the best defender in the world. Name any cb or any defender that have left arsenal and was great and not good where he went.Arsenal is a team that contains over-rated players and these over-rated players will only look great at arsenal and when they leave for other big club they will not be better than average except v.p and henry.there is no player worth looking at in arsenal for a team like barca cos arsenal contain average and good player and we only need great players at barca.so nah to kosh and every arsenal player and yeah he partnered mertesacker and u had second best defence in ur league does that make he and mertesacker world class (no) and cos valdes always concede less than casillas does that make him better than casillas(no) so u having 2nd best defence doesn't mean u defenders are great or anything .

 

[ryaninho]

that was how all arsenal fan were shouting vermaelen name two seasons ago that he was one of the best defender in the world. Name any cb or any defender that have left arsenal and was great and not good where he went.Arsenal is a team that contains over-rated players and these over-rated players will only look great at arsenal and when they leave for other big club they will not be better than average except v.p and henry.there is no player worth looking at in arsenal for a team like barca cos arsenal contain average and good player and we only need great players at barca.so nah to kosh and every arsenal player and yeah he partnered mertesacker and u had second best defence in ur league does that make he and mertesacker world class (no) and cos valdes always concede less than casillas does that make him better than casillas(no) so u having 2nd best defence doesn't mean u defenders are great or anything .

Wow this poost is something. Firstly vermalern at the mo is out of form since his injury at the start of the season and never recoverd it does not mean he is bad. 2) most Arsenals greate CB either retired or went to lesser clubs at 32+ none has ever been sold at they peak thus making that part of you statment invalid. Name me a player in the squad that is overrated? Arsenal contain average to good players? ok mate everyone is entitled to they own opinion, but don't under-estimate other teams. Your last point makes no sense kosh and mert together had the second best def in what you could argue toughest league in the world. Only letting in like 5 goals in 10 games. And yes having the the 2nd best def in the league makes you def great it's like having the best attack in the game you score the most works the same way. valdes concede less than casillas does not depend on how good they are but to how the team plays. barca (possesion) madrid (counter attack) meaning casillas has more to do than valdes meaning you can't compare the two. Ok tell me what makes a CB world cass? if it's not bossing the def and leading you team to a 10 unbeaten streak conceding 4-5 goals at most. There is a reason why we and bayern are looking at him. In you post you assumed I was a Arsenal fan sorry to say I'm not. My father and i are barca fans and bro and sis are arsenal fans