Francis Coquelin

We played our best football in years with Santo and Coquelin in midfield together.

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Coq was genuinely awesome for a while, he was what Casemiro is now for RM, he kept it simple, won the ball, gave it to someone else, then slowly started adding a quality long deep pass to his game. Henry called him police officer, Obama was still the prez, Cazorla had his arm tattoo still on his arm :disappointed_relieved:

Anyway, not sure what happened. Either Caz made him look good, or it worked in a 3-man midfield only, or the rest of the team was better, or something else, I donā€™t know but if he would return to that level of quality that would be immense for us.

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I donā€™t mind him either, as long as heā€™s used in the right way. As a water boy guarding the space in front of the defence. They need all the help they can get.

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To be fair, Cazorla could have played in midfield with a llama and made it look good.

Agreed.

I think it was a combo of Cazorla partnering nicely with Coq and the 4-2-3-1 formation suiting them nicely.

Once Wenger started trying to use Coquelin differently and trying to make him a more technical footballer it started going down hill.

I wouldnā€™t mind trying a 4-2-3-1 with Wilshere and Coquelin as the duo, Ozil in the middle and Iwobi, Alexis and Lacazette up front.

Come to think that Cazorla-Coquelin duo was playing with a front three of Sanchez, Iwobi and Walcott which seemed to work right up until we lost to Everton and City.

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Coquelin was genuinely good at his role, because creativity was never his role.
None of Ramsey, Xhaka, Elneny could replicate the same chemistry that Cazorla had with him.

Think Wilshere might be able to but letā€™s move on. Letā€™s find someone better.

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Santo the key word here.

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Iā€™ve was thinking the exact same thing but Wilshere never got his fitness going and then I dropped it lol

And yes Wenger seem to want to make every midfielder complete players, which isnā€™t a bad idea but it looks like we rather end up short in every department because the raw material is maybe not good enough.

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Yeah but Wenger should realise that sometimes you just need to have specialists like Coquelin who just specialise in doing one thing and doing it well.

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Thanks for 2015.

No use for him now but hope he does well at WHU/Valencia

The problem is not that he only does one thing good, but that heā€™s impressively shit in every other department.
Cazorla was doing the job of 2 midfielders when playing with him, a privilege that he wonā€™t and shouldnā€™t get in any club.

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Iā€™m nowhere near getting my hopes up yet. Watch his wage demands collapse any possible move for the next 3 years.

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I think heā€™s different to Walcott in that respect, has accepted heā€™s the definition of surplus and just wants to play so wages wonā€™t be as much of a barrier.

Coquelin as an out and out destroyer is perfectly fine. Heā€™s actually pretty good at it. I donā€™t know why Wenger tried to coach playmaking qualities into him. That was his downfall.

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Bendtner as winger???

Coq also doesnā€™t have a spot in a formation with 3 at the back and two wing backs. He is fine sitting in front of the back 4. Heā€™s even better in a team that will commit to pressing high up the pitch. He had some of his best games for us when we would actually press as a team, I remember him winning the ball a lot in the oppositions half in said games. He does read the game well defensively.

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Maybe we should actually sell him. But I was thinking today after reading all your posts there was a time when he contributed a lot as a destroyer and I donā€™t see how heā€™s lost that.

I guess my main thing is I want to see how these players could get on with a new coach, as guys like cow could well improve under somebody else.

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Coquelin has worked under multiple managers but only under Wenger has he truly come close to being a PL quality midfielder.
Ramsey & Xhaka are just not suitable partner for him.

Play him with Wilshere!!

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Tackling and giving the ball to Cazorla was his game and he was pretty good at it that season.

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