The difference being if you get someone knocking on your door at 3am claiming you’re in their house you get to shoot them
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He needs to go now. No other option really. Even if it costs us to flog him off, we need to set a clear example.
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I’m pretty upset that Kos time at Arsenal has ended like this. I could understand it if he expressed his desire to leave and we were being offered some sort of fair compensation but were just refusing. But we’re being offered zero fee and he forces our hand like this, very disappointing.
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Emery/Sanllehi are certified bums. Can’t believe it was part of the plan to go into the season relying on 34 year old injury riddled inconsistent CB on £90k p/w to be key part of the squad.
On returning from a summer break and with firm interest from clubs in his homeland, Koscielny informed Arsenal of his wish to leave and hoped his nine years of service and professionalism until this point would help achieve an amicable resolution.
However, Arsenal rejected the request and made it clear that they need and expect the Frenchman to honour his contract and be a key part of their squad in the coming campaign.
Given that head coach Unai Emery was happy with Koscielny’s performance in 2018-19 and already faces other issues in central defence, the view was that he could only go if a bid landed that reflected his value and importance to Arsenal.
Koscielny argues that Arsenal are reneging on an agreement that would allow him exit as a free agent during the current transfer window, something the Gunners strenuously deny.
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Rip it up and start again. If we get top 4 this season I’ll be very very surprised. We’re fucked
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Their hope was to sell Mustafi and bring in another center back. Without that, it would have stood to reason that Koscielny would be the natural third choice behind Sokratis and Holding (once he’s healthy). By key part of the squad, that doesn’t mean they planned to rely on him to play 38 league games and be a regular starter. This moves Mustafi up the pecking order unless they can find a taker and bring in somebody else.
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Not buying this as any kind of rationale. Not sure how you can plan a season on the assumption of selling a player with a completely non existent market.
We’re at preseason now, there’s zero links out and Mustafi’s camp have indicated they’re content with the current situation he was never going anywhere
Then why the fuck were we prepared to pay a depth player £90k p/w? Where’s the sense? Where the first team CB signing that we need? This whole situation is really indefensible whichever way you look at it
Sokratis and Holding is a terrible starting duo, wouldn’t shock me to see that pairing in the bottom half in terms of quality. These are not the piece for a CL challenge
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Absolute fucking disgrace…
Tell the club you want to leave…fine
Put in a transfer request…fine
Refuse to travel on tour and play for the club you are under contract with…fucking disgrace. Get the fuck out of our club you French cunt. You’re no captain.
The club must sell this cunt this summer or let the fucker rot in the reserves.
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Completely normal that an important player outages his contract at the end. Yes our transfer window is a shambles but blaming current regime for Kos contract is kind of ridiculous.
They get all the blame imo.
If Kos heart isn’t in anymore and his ability to contribute is significantly diminished then his request to be release a year early should have been confirmed. We should be reinvesting his wages into a new CB who is a automatic starter and can improve the 11.
Why retain Kos if you’re planning to bring in new top class CB? Lettting him go at this stage is actually a net positive for the club
Kind of odd a 34 year old CB with some severe injury log (didn’t he also play on painkillers?) on substantial wages offers you a exit solution and you don’t take it.
I think it speaks to the concern that we’re not going to see much outgoings this season, ridiculous. We need to be planning without Kos anyway. It’s just even better he feels his time is done.
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Because he’s the captain? Also, releasing him means we have to reinvest for possibly another CB(if Mustafi was going to be replaced anyway). In an ideal world we bring a new CB and Koscielny runs his contract out, controlled appearances when needed ofc.
Lolo royally screwed up. If it was personal reasons we wouldn’t put this out.
I don’t know what to say anymore.
We should already be doing this.
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Why the fuck are we relying on him going into 2019/20, that’s just fucking madness. Drama aside.
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I don’t think it’s odd when you consider that he’s still basically our best option there when fit enough. Even if we signed a quality CB (which seems like a pipe dream now), we’d still be trying to get rid of Mustafi (also a pipe dream now) and that’d leave us with only Holding, Sokratis and an utterly average Calum Chambers if Koscielny left.
It’s a total indictment of our recruitment and planning over recent years that we’re in this situation, but I don’t think it’s strange that Arsenal want Koscielny to be in the squad for atleast another campaign given our shocking options at the back. It’s a complete mess, and it’s just gotten way worse because he most certainly will leave now and I have pretty much zero faith that we’ll even make a single signing at the back for this upcoming season.
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Meh given situation that is pretty harsh. The problem is we haven’t done enough business period. Seeing an aging veteran as reliable 3rd or 4th option is perfectly reasonable. If Koss wanted out, he should have handled it better.
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It never even crossed my mind to lose Kos, because I didn’t think he wanted to leave and didn’t think anyone would want him.
But if we replaced Kos with someone competent I wouldn’t mind playing 2 CBs and Mustafi being 4th choice / EL group stage and hoping nobody gets injured until next year when Saliba joins.
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This is never something to hope for because it always happens, especially with this club