Laurent Koscielny: We Conceded A Poor Goal & Paid For It

By The Editor
on 12th January 2019

Laurent Koscielny honest about our defensive performance against West Ham…

Arsenal skipper Laurent Koscielny claimed that you cannot give cheap goals away and expect to get away with it in the Premier League after our 1-0 defeat at West Ham, the Frenchman told Sky Sports.

Declan Rice gave the hosts all three points as he pounced on a poor clearance by Granit Xhaka to stain a defensive performance which wasn’t as shabby as we’ve seen in recent weeks.

However, Koscielny stated that the mistake we made is all the opposition needs for us to be punished severely and our lack of attacking fluency did little to make up for that error.

It could potentially leave us six points behind fourth-placed Chelsea, while a win for Manchester United will see them join us on 41 points.

“Yeah, in the box we needed to be clear with the ball and we didn’t do that,” Koscielny said when asked if the goal we conceded was a poor one.

“In football, if you give a small chance to your opponent you pay in cash and today we did.”

Koscielny returned to the defence following a back problem and he seemed assured in his display, operating on the left of a back three.

He made his first Premier League appearance in the middle of a trio at Southampton and didn’t look comfortable, as we lost the game due to three headed goals.

Under Arsene Wenger, Koscielny was deployed on the left of a back three and looked at ease which should hopefully clarify Emery’s thoughts on his best position.