Star centre back Laurent Koscielny has praised his teammates following Arsenal’s win against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, and called for Arsenal to show their ‘good face’ on a more frequent basis (via Arsenal.com). The French defender was a crucial factor in our victory, and managed to keep lethal striker Robert Lewandowski quiet for the entire game.
Arsenal’s defence is not exactly our strong suit, and nor is it expected to be. With world class talent like Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez up front, as well as our tendency to dominate the ball more often than not our defenders have little to do. But when called upon to step up on Tuesday night, the entire team acquitted themselves beautifully at the back. It is also very exciting to see that Arsenal can switch up their style of play so drastically now; all too often we have been called the one-trick pony that is easy to read and counter.
Speaking to Arsenal Player, Koscielny admitted that it was tough going at times to keep the Munich attack at bay:
“Defensively we were together like a unit, we defended to help our team-mates and we played on the counter-attack. I think we were good and we had a lot of potential to score.
“Bayern hadn’t lost a game this season so it was very hard and tough for us but sometimes you need to play differently and everybody in front [of the defence] did their job well – it was very good and we need to keep this for the season.
“You can see the team were very focused in their defensive job and it is very important to keep this for the rest of the season because for the first two games of the Champions League we did not play very well.
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“But here we saw a very good face of Arsenal and we need to keep this for the other games because I like I said before sometimes it is more difficult but you need to be stronger when you defend.”
Tuesday’s loss was Bayern’s first of the season in all competitions, and we also managed to maintain a clean sheet against an attack that is averaging over 3 goals a game so far this season. This result bodes very well for the season ahead, and provided Kos and the rest of the defence keep up this level of discipline, we could see Arsenal give Manchester City a run for their money this year.
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