I remember being very pleased that we recalled him as he was one of my favourites players that came through the academy at the time.
Seeing him step up the way he did was truly special.
He’s low-key unlucky that he left right before Emery arrived, who then later on went to coach him at Villarreal.
What hope, this guy was mediocre beyond all comprehension. Wenger wasted our time with this guy (By neglecting the role which made people desperate) and wasted Cazorla’s time as well.
Coquelin is wildly underrated, and the partnership with Cazorla was one of the best midfield duos we had in the post-2006 era.
If we actually had a striker that could score, it would have won a PL title. The Cazorla + Coquelin partnership had us top of the table for 128 days or whatever it was if I’m not mistaken.
He was ineffective as a lone CDM but paired with Cazorla they were great together and he was a much better dribbler than he’s given credit for.
IMO, it worked (in some way) because Coq was willing to stay back and cover Santi.
Not that Coq was reallly a destroyer or one of a kind CDM/CM.
In other words, he freed up Santi.
If you paired Santi with Ramsey, you know what the problem is.
Not trying to discredit him nor hyping him up.
He is a squad player at most.
That title challenge was an illusion, we got smoked by big clubs (Liverpool 5-1, Chelsea 6-0) and started the embarrassing streak against Bayern. It had a nice peak then returned to the mean.
Only thing they did right was winning FA Cups and nearly that went awry (Hull)
Coquelin wasn’t involved 2013-2014 as he was at Freiburg on loan.
That was the season we put a fugazi title charge and then we got slapped by the other big boys.