Koscielny: Spurs win the turning point

By ESPNSTAR.com staff

In a summer that saw captain Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri leave the club, the London side were seriously lacking in the creativity department. 

And this was made apparent as after seven games, Arsenal were still in 15th place and players had real fears that this could be a season of regret and began to think that Wenger needed to change his methods and set his stall out for defence. Those initial two months included a 8-2 drubbing by Manchester United in what was Koscielny's first game back from injury. 

Luckily for both the Frenchmen, things have turned around for the club and Arsenal find themselves in pole position to secure a third-place finish. Despite being 19 points behind the Manchester giants, the club's fans are still content with the showing in the current campaign and Koscielny is happy that his coach and his fellow team-mates did not let the criticism get to them and make them lose their self-belief. 

"The start of the season was catastrophic," Koscielny told France Football. "We lost key players from our system. There was late recruitment of new players and the mayonnaise needed time to 'take'.

"There was the thrashing at Old Trafford. The whole world buried us. But you don't lose your football like that.

"It can happen that a small grain of sand jams the engine and after that you start to doubt your own qualities, the club, the coach and everything else. We needed to sort that out. Everyone got down to doing just that, the coach, the club.

"The group was not giving enough for the club and we realised that. We got down to work and we said the things we needed to say. After that, one win, two wins, confidence returns and things follow on from that. The new players were immersed in the group and so on.

"I don't want to have regrets. If we have a nightmarish start to the season it's because we deserved it. Frankly I want to come out of this season having matured. The season I went through was tough but full of emotions."

Koscielny believes that Arsenal's dramatic north London derby victory over Tottenham in the new year was pivotal in helping turn things around. Despite being two goals down within the first thirty minutes, the Arsenal players rallied and scored five goals to win in what turned out to be a convincing win. 

"We had pressure, we were five points behind Chelsea and everyone was saying 'the Champions League is finished, Tottenham will win'. 

"But we beat them 5-2 and we put together seven wins. Maybe we didn't dominate all our matches but mentally we had something more.

"At Liverpool for example we always believed and Robin [van Persie] gave us the win at the end of the match."

And Koscielny is especially grateful that the gods of football have been kind to star striker Robin van Persie allowing him to play an entire season relatively injury-free. Previously, the Dutchman always struggled to maintain his fitness and he was a shadow of the luminary that he has now become. 

Koscielny even joked that when he trains with the striker, he tries to take it easy on him because he badly does not wish to lose the striker to injury. 

"For sure we also had Robin van Persie," he said. "It is his season. I'm really happy for him. It's the first time that injuries left him alone and we saw the difference.

"I try not to kick him a lot in training, I go soft with him!" 

With Arsenal needing just a win against West Brom on Sunday it appears as if the Gunners are set to qualify for the Champions League for a 15th consecutive season. 

They will likely look to invest heavily in order to ensure that they can match their Mancunian rivals and oil-rich Chelsea in procuring strong reinforcements and remain in contention for the title in the new season. 

Koscielny, for one, will likely be more defiant in future seasons regardless of the club's predicament after enduring a rollercoaster ride of a second season with the Gunners.