Worst individual performance by an Arsenal player

[Mitch]

I think Koscienly is criminally underrated and was much in his prime than the overrated Kolo You're in his prime.

Koscienly peformance against Bayern in 2015 is still one of best peformances I've seen from an Arsenal CB that I can think off ( even much better than Per's great peformance against Chelsea in the FA Cup final).

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

The only time that Koscielny looked class for a significant time was when he had Per there to think for him and order him around.

He was a great athlete but everything was last ditch tackles, needing to use his recovery pace because he was out of position etc. Really good CB's rarely get themselves in those sorts of positions to start with.

You could make a great highlight reel out of all his desperate last ditch tackles etc. Happened way too frequently.

You always fancied him to drop a howler in a big game too. Proper mentally frail when the pressure was really on.

 

[Gunner D]

I think Koscienly is criminally underrated and was much in his prime than the overrated Kolo You're in his prime.

Koscienly peformance against Bayern in 2015 is still one of best peformances I've seen from an Arsenal CB that I can think off ( even much better than Per's great peformance against Chelsea in the FA Cup final).

Koscielny better than Kolo Toure?

 

[Sapient Hawk]

1. Traore vs Utd I'm the 8-2 loss

2. Diaby vs Utd 1st leg CL

3. Giroud vs Monaco

4. Stepanovs vs Utd 6-1

5. Luiz being subbed on against City giving away a penalty and being sent off with 30 minutes.

Any Kaba Diwara peformance. Whilst there was also plenty of shocking peformances from the likes Sanogo, Ramsey, Bellerin and Santos.

He could've had 4 goals against Leeds that fateful weekday evening 23 years ago. A brace would've handed us the initiative going into the final day against Aston Villa at Highbury.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Koscielny better than Kolo Toure?

If anyone believes that, I don't doubt they'll believe Tets is a greater manager than Arsène Wenger

I really hope we don't win anything for decades on end because this disgusting fanbase deserves nothing but perpetual misery for its slide into cult worship of a man who, in terms of relevance in football lore, is no more than that of a decomposing rodent's carcass.

 

[Riou]

If anyone believes that, I don't doubt they'll believe Tets is a greater manager than Arsène Wenger

I really hope we don't win anything for decades on end because this disgusting fanbase deserves nothing but perpetual misery for its slide into cult worship of a man who, in terms of relevance in football lore, is no more than that of a decomposing rodent's carcass.

I also don't think Kos is better than Kolo (though I still think Kos was a very good player)

But how in the hell have you managed to find a way to make it about Arteta

 

[Mraven]

Koscielny was a great defender, but also an elite bottler. Cost us the EL a few years back

 

[Sapient Hawk]

I also don't think Kos is better than Kolo (though I still think Kos was a very good player)

But how in the hell have you managed to find a way to make it about Arteta

That's easy. For me, it was never not about Tets

 

[Riou]

Most of Kos' worst performances came from 2017-2019, he was pretty poor those seasons...but that was because injuries just really took a toll on him, don't forget he played through massive pain in one of his ankles for Arsène.

But from 2012-2016, he was quality... considering how attacking we were as a team then, you would be lucky to find a better CB.

Don't want to take anything away from Per either, as he was very good for us too...but if you think that wasn't helped by having Kos' speed and aggression next to him, then you are mad...they brought the best out of eachother, Kos was just as important as Mert for us.

 

[Mitch]

Koscielny better than Kolo Toure?

- More good peformances.

-Less poor peformances.

- Kos best peformances were better than Toure at his best.

- Toure had a massive drop in quality of peformance when he dropped a lot muscle mass and when Campbell also had issues with injury and also a huge decline in quality (which appeared to happen over night).

- Was out performed by Senderos during the 05/06 season.

- Toure was the poorer of the 2 CBs in one of poorest partnerships in Toure & Gallas ( Gallas was very underwhelming for us but better than Toure at Time).

- Wenger on Koscielny: "Is he as good as anyone around in that position? I think so.". I don't recall Wenger ever referring to Toure in such light ( considering he was never even our best CB at any time).


Koscielny was a well rounded player than Kolo, had better attributes overall:

- faster (although Toure was no slouch himself)
- better in aerial challenges
- better tackler
- better anticipation
- better at intercepting passes

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Not long ago Tavares and Cedric fullback performance against utd i never seen such awful performance defensively.

Before that maybe everytime Squillaci was on pitch guy couldn't do one thing right we lucky the league wasn't as good and we were good overall because it'll be nightmare to watch.

 

[EgyptianGunner]

In terms of game importance, nothing will ever top both (Almunia and Lehmann) vs Barca

 

[Brett]

Holding vs Sp**s

 

[Riou]

Logging on to an Arsenal forum, but finding yourself having to defend Laurent Koscielny and Kolo Toure...so ****ing weird

 

[RunTheTrap]

Kos gets a lot of stick, he’s better than White and Gabriel. Reads the game much better than them anyway, doesn’t have the physicality of Gabriel.

He’s really not. Kos is one of the mentally softest footballers we’ve ever had. He improved when he got Mertesacker to hold his hand but overall I didn’t like him that much.

 

[RunTheTrap]

Anyone remembers Aaron Ramsey’s first season back here after his loan spell. The 11/12 season. Poor guy was deployed as our 10 to replace Cesc and was diabolical at it. I remember he had one game against a lower PL team (I think it was Fulham). He completed something like 55% of his passes and his Whoscored rating was like 4.6.

 

[RunTheTrap]

I remember a game where Squillaci head butted Koscienly and we conceded a goal in the most Looney Toons fashion we could possibly conjure. All was missing was some wacky music at the background.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

Yes I honestly can, because he was additionally, I remember at the time being one of the few posters who was pro-Mertesacker, the general consensus was that he was the CB Peter Crouch but even worse, which turned out to be nonsense.

Kos had rash moments in him but to dismiss his entire time here as "a disaster waiting to happen" or similar is revisionism on steroids.

Koscielny was a disaster, he would make mistakes every single game he just didn't always get punished for it. Honestly no other top team would've given him as many minutes as Arsenal did but we're awful with that for example Almunia was here for 8 years. Koscielny would've been a Ligue 2 player his whole career if Arsène had better taste in players.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

Think I have seen Gabriel switch off for example, in big games, in 2 years, more than i have even seen from Kos in his career. But he’s a big tough Brazilian so we have to line up to suck him off.

Koscielny career at Arsenal coincided with the most drubbings I've ever seen Arsenal receive. We were conceding 4/5/6 goals on a regular basis during the Koscielny years.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

If we never signed Mertesacker then Koscielny probably ends up being sold a year or two later. He looked so hopeless until an actual top CB came in to hold his hand.