Arsenal fans on Twitter slate Koscielny as Frenchman steps up injury return

Laurent Koscielny played his first 45 minutes of football since being substituted with a ruptured achilles back in March last night. The defender featured for Arsenal’s U23s as they fell to a 5-0 defeat against Derby, although the Frenchman was subbed at half-time with the score at just 1-0. However, a lot of fans don’t want to see Kosicleny back and believe that the 33-year-old is finished.

This

It’s so good to see @6_LKOSCIELNY back in action – good luck, skip https://t.co/QW0NZfC4eK

— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) 26 November 2018

The French defender is still the official club captain at The Emirates and whilst Unai Emery has a handful of players that he can rely on to wear the armband, the captaincy will likely fall back to the 33-year-old when he does rejoin the first team out on the pitch, even if the fans would love to see him binned off and sold on in January. Considering his age and his injury record, selling the defender in the winter window doesn’t sound like an awful move.

So far this season, Emery has been using Shkodran Mustafi, Rob Holding and new summer signing Sokratis Papastathopoulos as his three central defenders, and it’s worked up to now. The Gunners are currently 5th and a win over Tottenham on Sunday could take them as high as 3rd, depending on how Chelsea get on against Fulham at Stamford Bridge. The way that Arsenal are now playing, you can understand why some fans would be reluctant to reintroduce Koscielny and if he was to be sold, a lot of fans would have few complaints.

You can read The Gunners’ negative responses to the Kosicleny news here: