So, lets try and distance ourselves from the ever repetitive Cesc/Yaya Toure rumours and have a look at a player who has been heavily linked to us recently, albeit a bit discretely.
We are reported to have tabled a couple of bids for the French/Polishman, who currently plays for Lorient who finished 7th in Ligue 1 last season.The first bid was reported to be around 8-10 million quid – which was rejected. There have been some murmurings that Francis Coquelin will go the other way on loan for a season as a sweetener but I believe Jamie over at Young Guns that negotiations were taking place with French clubs over a loan for Coquelin anyway and it actually has nothing to do with the deal.
There are rumours that we are preparing a third bid for the defender and that could well clinch it with Lorient having brought the guy for just short of 2 million last summer – thats quite some profit there.
I agree with the skeptics saying that this is a player who is unproven at the top – we had all mostly heard of Tomas Vermaelen last summer and he had already got Champions League experience and international experience with Belgium. Koscielny has not even played for one of two national teams he is eligible for… Poland or France.
Then how can he command such a fee? It puzzles me and if we do buy him (and submitting three bids shows we really do), he better be worth the money because that 10 million could get us a very good goalkeeper – and on that note, if we buy Mark Schwarzer I don’t think we will have done anything but replace mediocrity with much older mediocrity. Reports suggest it is very, very possible he will be with us next season.
Heres a few things about him…
- Until last season he was playing in Ligue 2 (French version of the Championship)
- FC Lorient signed Koscielny on a four-year contract for 1.5 million Euros
- Eligible to play for France and Poland
- Started off as a full-back
- Made 35 appearances last season scoring 3 goals
- Oh, and he is a central defender…
So as you can probably gather, we know absolutely sod all about him. It would be nice for someone like Philippe Auclair to give us his opinion on his credentials but I doubt he will get drawn into it and probably has bigger fish to fry anyway…
Seeing as we are making a third attempt at signing the guy he must be pretty high up the wanted list, lets just hope its a wise move.
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I to have a issue with the transfer fee but not so much the player.. as is well known wenger and his scouts track players over many games and so he must have something (to part with that amount of dollar anyway)!!! so i looked up the team where he came from En Avant de Guingamp! players such as Jean-Pierre Papin, Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba started there so they also spot talent. hopefully he is gonna be 3rd choice anyway after Verminator and +1 worldclass CB…. and surly you cant compare almunia and flapyanski to Mark Schwarzer id take the old boy all day long over those dodgey pair(but still want someone different) DMF still needed.. gooners for life:-)
That’s kind of the odd thing here, Martin. There must be something about Koscielny that we don’t know for Arsene to make multiple offers for him and to offer such a significant amount (should the final transfer go through) above what was paid for him just a season ago. Arsene may not always get it right, but he’s got a keen eye that doesn’t fail him too often.
Regarding the comparison to Vermaelen, while it’s true most of us had at least heard of him when he popped up on the radar before last summers window, there were A LOT of questions about him and many Gooners were not happy with the purchase. Not only size, but also many comments regarding the Eredivisie and the quality of defenders that currently come from that league. If all our expectations had been higher, I doubt so many of us would have been as surprised with the season Vermaelen had. But lo and behold…Arsene was proven absolutely correct in his evaluation and acquisition. And we all praised what a good bit of business it was for Arsenal to buy him.
I guess my main thought here is…lets just see what happens with Koscielny. He might or might not be the only CB we buy this summer, but I have a sneaking feeling we’re going to be just as happy with him as we are with Verm. He doesn’t need to score goals like Verm, but as long as he’s a hard man who can really defend and plays for the Badge (as Verm obviously does), then I’m all for tossing a bit of dosh Lorient’s way.
About a year ago an ajax player called vermaelen was not well known, so lets see what unfolds if we keep our best player in midfield and supplement with a few good buys
The fact that he hasn’t played for any national team says nothing. Domenech doesn’t like to call up players from mid-table clubs. However, French sites are raving about him and saying he’ll surely get a call up once he moves to a bigger club.
And he couldn’t have played for Poland as from what I hear, getting Polish citizenship is complicated in his case.
You don’t have to be a big name to be a big player.
Birmingham had one of the meanest defences in the league last year and I couldn’t name you their CBs.
I imagine Grimandi has watched probably all 30 odd games this lad has played in and he’s therefore suitable scouted.
Would you prefer we paid 10mil for chris smalling who is equally, if not more so unproven?
People get obsessed with big names and forget that there are a lot of quality centre halves around who will do well.
“goonertank” is spot on! Birmingham had a stella defence of relitive unknowns compared to most champions league superstars, if his a good solid cb then his worth the dollah better than paying 15m for gary cahill the aston villa reject.
Anyone see Schwarzer’s performance in our last match of the season? Of course you did. So, you really think he’s a candidate to replace Almunia? Really? Then we’re either doomed or very, very stupid.
As for Toure? Not a chance in hell. Too expensive. Too going-somehere-else. Too going-absolutely-nowhere – just like Cesc. If Barca decide to sell him then you know they’re way short of cash.
The Lorient story is a little worrying though. Anything from 5M euros to 10M pounds (Obviously all these numbers are simply made up by hacks blindly sticking pins in the FT back pages). The worrying thing is that he speaks Polish. The same Polish that Fabianski speaks.
Now if those rumours of Vermaelen attending the summer Berlitz Polski class are true – then you see AW’s very scary thinking.
The only thing scarier is the rumour that Silvestre was seen there with him.
Have we really been reduced to taking the tales from the tabs as gospel?? Who says we made 3 bids – it could just as well be 5 bids or none. It would be quite unsurprising is he arrived this week for 4million or if we sigbed someone else and had never made a bid for him.
If we do sign him we can be sure Wenger will have been doing extensive due diligence increasing the likelihood of him being good enough beyond that if it was any other club making the chase. Vermaelen was considered by most not to be worth 10million until he played his first game and we all fell in love with him and he was watched 30+ times before purchase.
they want traore and coqoelin so gve them those 2 on loan and bid 10 million and that should bag him
what about richards?? £9m would see him play for the club he supports.. he’s gone off the boil abit but i feel thats down to management.. also we need 2 defenders so how about steven taylor for £5m.. give them wilkshire on loan and jay emmanuel thomas on loan.. bargain !
Wait to see if Arsenal sign him before you start moaning. Even then- cut AW a piece of slack and wonder if he has unearthed a gem. An idiot can moan and crawl back into the woodwork when they have been proved wrong.
How come everyone seems to be overlooking the fact that he is just just 6ft tall (same height as vermaelen). We have seen the consequence of having small defenders at the back. Furthermore, Koscienly looks fragile aswell. We need a tall, strong defender who can compliment vermaelen’s pace and athleticism. He might turn out to have a really good first season. However, I still reckon we will drop points if he is to partner vermaelen in defence.