Arsenal’s latest signing Francis Coquelin has spoken about the reasons behind his switch from French minnows Stade Lavallois. The 17 year old France Under 17 International spent 7 days on trial with the club last month, and despite sustaining a thigh injury has earned his dream move to London, after Arsenal beat of competition from Lyon and Nantes.
Speaking with French Sports radio station (RMC), Coquelin explained that the reputation of the club helped influenced his decision:.
“Arsenal is a club which trust young players, and allows you to train and develop with great players”
With Thanks To “Vince” From ASCFR For Translation’s
Setanta reports the player was in London yesterday afternoon, where he underwent a medical before putting pen to paper on a “long term” contract believed to be 5 years in length. Francis will now have the next month to settle in his new housing in London, before reporting for pre-season training in late June.
Steve Bould’s Under 18’s, and Neil Banfield’s Reserves team start their preparations earlier that the first team, and Coquelin is expected to make his debut against Rushden & Diamonds on the 31st of July. As both managers get a final look at their squads before deciding on who will be released, and who will get new contracts.
Coquelin is a rugged, strong, aggressive defensive midfielder. Blessed with a super passing range as well as all the combative qualities you would expect from a holding central player. He made 13 starts for Laval’s Reserves team last season, making two further appearance’s from the bench, and is set for a starting role in Banfield’s Reserves side.
Francis Coquelin Player Bio
Name: – Francis Coquelin
DOB : – 13 May 1991 (17 Years Old)
Position : – Defensive Midfield
Height: – 178cm
Transfer Fee : – Free
Contract Status: – Professional
Article By – J.Sanderson
Good news!
J.S any news on the Nasri transfer, it seems its dragging a bit?
Small, French, 17 year old midfielder signed for free from a third division French team?
Is he of direct African descent by any chance?
You couldn’t make it up!
Also where does this signing leave Lansbury?
I guess it his make or break year.
Must not be bad knowing that Lyon were also interested and the fact that he was in the French U-17 team. Hope it works out for him and for arsenal.
Good articel J
This kid sounds pretty good to me! J.S any news of whether any of the current youngsters will be going on loan next season?
Hes a DMF (Francis) I thought Lansbury was more a deep lying playmaker.
Totally underwhelmed by our ambition, signing a French 3rd division player who spent most of last season in their reserves. Was this the signing AW promised us would happen in the “next2-3” weeks and probably the Nasri rumour was a smokes screen in order for us to get this transfer wrapped up. Man United must be shaking with fear.
What friendly games are coming up? Might have to have a look if they are local.
Dave, we stil aren’t at the end of that 2-3 week period yet!!! Why don’t we just wait and see who we do get because you know that wont be it, i still think that we will sign Nasri even though they are now being a bit gay and saying that he may wai until after the euro’s to sign, apparently he is now on European duty.
I’ll tell u what, he looks way taller than 178 by the looks of that pic. Anyway, nice work as always JS.
sorry he’s not on european duty he is on ‘International duty with France’
Well Dave, would you rather we didn’t sign reserve players, such as Fabregas, Van Persie, Flamini, Vieira, Henry, etc and just went out and spent like Utd, who by the way are also £0.74 BILLION in debt?
It seems that somebody believed to be Lyon has bid for him too, and Nasri could slip away.
Coquelin should be James Dunne’s replacement, rather than Lansbury who does have a big season ahead.
Raj, I’d rather we went out and bought ready made players for the first team squad which was found severly lacking in depth last season. as for United debt, doubt very much the fans are worrying too much about that today.
Can i also say, we are signing players for the first team, but doesnt mean our youth development stops.
We have time and money for both signings. The last player we signed from that league was a certain Gael Clichy
Coquelin should make his debut against Rushen & Diamonds, on the Thursday July 31st.
http://www.northantset.co.uk/sport/Diamonds-confirm-summer-schedule.4111881.jp
I really hope Nasri doesnt slip away.
We need a player like him!
And we all know how crap clichy is… Not very! In fact will one day be the best left back in the world, that i don’t doubt. Hopefully this new kid can make his name here too!
JS, so now your saying Nasri could slip away. Over the last 24hrs wwe have had so called “in the know” people claiming its in the bag and he’s ours to now “he could slip away”. lets face it nobody on the outside has a clue including yourself. I think this site is top class but dont go spoiling it with your unfounded “in the know” talk and getting readers hopes up. You know an awful lot about the youngsters and that makes this site priceless but your knowledge on goings on regarding the senior squad is as sound as mine and should be left to the rumours merchants.
Reports i have read is that he is similar to Lassana Diarra and Claude Makalele, a sweeping defensive midfielder.
By the way does anyone know how to get a job at Arsenal??? At least then i would be able to go on here and say what is definately goin on haha :-)
Dave i am not claiming i am in the know, and i am going by the info on the internet.
L’Equipe says he was all but ours, and now accoriding to reports in England it seems Another club has bid. Which they think is from Lyon.
Football transfers are never simple.
To be fair J.S has never said anything for definate, he hs just been passing on the info he has got for our benefit. If we can do the same why can’t he share it? Everytime i have read something he has always stated ‘it’s not definate’ or ‘lets just wait and see’. Can’t shoot the messenger, it’s us lot reading inot things what we want and then blaming him when it doesn’t happen!
Raj, I’d rather we went out and bought ready made players for the first team squad which was found severly lacking in depth last season. as for United debt, doubt very much the fans are worrying too much about that today.
Dave said this on May 22, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Yeah, just like Leeds fans didn’t care about their over-spending on players. And they’re still flying high in the Premiershi… oh wait.
AW has always, ALWAYS bought young players AND older ones in the summer transfer window. Last January was the only time I’ve known him not to get both. I can’t see why people are thinking Coquelin is the only player we’ll sign, AW is talking up a CB to displace one of the two best in the world and a creative midfielder most likely to be lm while Rosicky gets 1 every 9 games (most likely to be nasri or hba it seems).
Last summer AW said he’d sign 1 quality player and a striker because Henry left. In the end we got that one 1 quality player (Sagna) and striker (Eduardo) and added Diarra and Fabianski to the first team squad. All the while Sunu and Nordveidt joined the youth ranks.
I’m just saying, chill Dave, this is not the big player (not big name :D) signing.
By the way does anyone know how to get a job at Arsenal??? At least then i would be able to go on here and say what is definately goin on haha
Clacko the Gooner said this on May 22, 2008 at 12:56 pm
There is a managing director gig going, should be easy to get…
Well on Football manager i am good with the finances of my club, that should get me in i reckon :-)
Yeah but on FM they never factor in things like paying off the debt or raising tickets prices and thing. I’d love it if they did, that nerdy stuff about the finances (and still winning muchos trophies) is what I love.
we will not be signing nasri as it looks like lyon and LOM will do a swap deal involving nasri and benarfa.
i dont get it with the Nasri transfer have we so ,ost ur appeal to players that teams like lyon can trump us? we must have made him a silly wage offer as usual, the difference between the CL and PL winners is they dont mes about in the transfer market. if you really want the player pay him well from the begenning like the chavs.
we wont be siging anyone of note this year a few squad additions from some obscure teams from obscure leagues.
i hope dien and ushmanov take Arsenal FC over, we have got everything in place the ground, training facilities a young team that needs some star sprinkle. get ushmanov in and buy KAKA, RIBERY, make rediculous offers like abramovich did with transfers and wages.
its roumered that manscum will buy veloso and hun te laar to addto their burgeoning squad of talent. tehy will beat us to the signing of ramsey and jeremy helan a real wonder kid, not this coquein kid.
one more season withour trophies and the club will begin to unravel. i hope we are taken over this summer before the transfer window closes. USHMANOV is rischer then abramovich.
watching the manscum lift the CL lastr night just bought it home how far we are beind them in terms of lifting trophies.
its sad that someone like nasri wants to think about joining us, manscum dont have that problem, players are falling over themselves to sign for them and every year we lose one or two of our best players. hleb wants to join inter, real or milan he thinks they are bigger then us. we are not going to be a big club if we incessently continue with this frugal policy of asking WENGER to perform miracles in finding world class talent on the cheap.
That would be pretty cool! I promise that the next big Manager job that comes up i am goin to send in my fm08 CV and see what happens! I reckon i could well be the next England manager, well if the will sign up Mclaren i have got every chance :-)
Thenry, I agree with you to a certain extent. We cant compete with Chels or Man U off the pitch. Odds on that sooner rather than later if we dont start bringing established players, and by that I mean players ready to come in and do a job not necessary star names, we will topple out the top 4. When that happens we will be in serious trouble financially. I dont want us to sign the Kakas of this world but it would be nice if players like Nasri jumped at the chance of joining “the Arsenal” rather than having to hum and ha over whether its the only offer worth taking.
LANSBURY, GIBBS & RANDALL ARE THE FUTURE!
Will be interesting to see where this guy fits into things.
Hi,
New to your website – i don’t seem to be able to view any content for the articles that are written…
All i get is the headline, with a picture, and then straight to the comments like this one.
Am i going wrong somewhere?
Thanks!
I think Rodgers is very talented full back, strong, aggressive has better positioning than all our defenders in reserves/under 18s.
Too many of them rely on pace as opposed to “good positioning” a bit like our 1st team sometimes, with “Awesome Sagna” excluded, wat a player. I cannot not believe Domenech thinks francois clerc & sagnol. He needs to change the thickness of glasses cuz he is blind.
Sanderson, You said he might be released, WHY
Tawrick Jibril’s name is being mentioned for a trial. Ghanaian any info???
unrelated i know, but check out henri lansbury’s facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=510684055&ref=share
pretty crazy stuff, get an idea about his party going life!! makes a man jealous!
I for one am very very very vrey happy that Clichy and Sagna have been left out of the Eruo’s. At least this is two less players that are likely to come back to trining tired, fatigued or injured! Also i heard somewher that the Spanish coach prefers to play Xavi and Alonso rather than Fabregas, what a bargain there, our best player might not be playing. I am lovin the Euro’s at the moment, until it kicks off and i will be derpressed sat in my garden with a football in my hand not believing that there will be no proper England games just freindlies.
I should just bring your attention to this..
All that says to me is that we are still 5% short!!!
To JS and all other gooners. I think I got good news for you all regarding the Nasri transfer. All media seems to rely on the quote “we are not in a hurry” and “we got other offers”, but when I read the full french article with all the quotes I also translate some part to “the market (transfer) doesn’t open until next Monday, so until then nothing can be finalised (official)”. The french paper seems certain that he is going to Arsenal, and also that Ben Arfa is going to Marseille.
Cheers for this JS. We must have the best scouting network in world football. Big up to Giles Grimandi. Lets just see what happens with the Nasri deal.No point getting bent out of shape. Plus the good news is that Ashley Cole has still won f*ck all since he left Arsenal. Now there’s a reason to be cheerful!!!
I am hoping Francis Coquelin is not another Flamini ..Remember we got flamini on free and lost him without getting compensation….I still believe we have not lost Nasri , I am sure he will sign for us considering his age and being a french National he will feel more at home in Arsenal than eslewhere
Dave and Thenry are two of the most negative persons I have ever heard from. I would rather never win any titles than winning them like Chelsea do.
And even if we don’t get Nasri (I believe we will get him) then it’s not the end of Arsenal FC. Last year we lost out on Ribery, Malouda and Babel but we still got 15 points more than the season before. Now it would have been good to get one of those players but my point is that the future of Arsenal does not depend on a race for one player. We always win some and lose some. We got Cesc, we didn’t get C. Ronaldo. We got Campbell, we didn’t get Ronaldinho. We got Mannone, we lost Cech and so on and so on.
Maybe losing Nasri would be a secret blessing. Losing Babel gave Eboue the opportunity to shine, for example (hahahahahaha). Maybe then Wenger buys another guy who will be better. Maybe he goes for Krancjar or even Diego. But we are still by far the most likely destination for Nasri. Like JS said, transfers are never simple. Do you remember any player that was known as well as Nasri whose transfer went through smoothly? Even the Fabianski transfer took a while, and at a point it seemed like Stuttgart were going to beat us for him.
Maybe the only reason why Nasri would not want to join us is that he will certainly not be picked for the Euro if he is an Arsenal player ;)
95% done? Tell that to his agent, the money hungry bastard. I hope we can wrap this deal up as soon as possible. I know arseblog said not to get worked up over transfers, but it’s too late for the Nasri situation for me. I’ll keep checking the official site every 10 seconds!
I wonder why people don’t mind us going into debt just to land a ‘big name player’………it’s amazing for people who claim to love Arsenal not minding the financial state of the club as long as we can win something on the pitch, we are so lucky that we have a manager like Arsene who believes in developing players rather than spending millions on players. As much as I want us to win trophies, I am also mindful of the cost of those trophies….is it worth it to win today and the club in trouble tomorrow financially, Can Dave and Thenry pay more for their ticket prices to fund the already over paid players of today…..mind you these guys get paid in a week what some of us will be very happy to earn in a year and we still contribute to paying their astronomical wages from our meagre salaries and they keep asking for more………
95% done? Tell that to his agent, the money hungry bastard. I hope we can wrap this deal up as soon as possible. I know arseblog said not to get worked up over transfers, but it’s too late for the Nasri situation for me. I’ll keep checking the official site every 10 seconds!
Forrest said this on May 22, 2008 at 2:50 pm
ha ha ha…..that means I am not the only one. I keep saying to myself that I will not bother about it but I keep finding myself going back……….
I can’t believe you guys want us to be like Chelsea where the director opens his own cheque book to sign players. Then the club will lose respect. We are NOT Chelsea. Even if Chelsea win anything, others will still say that they bought the title/cup rather than built from the clubs foundation/resources.
Good thing we didnt buy Babel, he seems to be good in dribbling but he’s a headless chicken in his game vision. Like a certain Quincy Owusu Abeyie who was sold to Spartak Moscow, got loan out to Celta Vigo and never heard of til now.
Francis Coquelin is nothing special. If he was, he wouldn’t have been without a contract. We got him on the free and we’ll probably sell him for a million or two within a few years. It’s good business, but don’t expect anything from him.
Ozz he was out of contract, his scholarship had finished. Like Flamini’s contract had finished
brilliant site js.To add to all the comments about the nasri deal,i think we could bag it.arsenal is france central,nasri would feel right at home, its his agent thats just playing mind games.in sure by the end of next week we will have signed monsieur ‘ zidane’ and what a player he will be. A rocket of a shot,brilliant range of passes topped only by fab4.wenger knows,we had this season,wat killed us was the eduardo injury and sagna’s.
duck.. a certain ryan babel knocked us out of the CL this year.
duck.. a certain ryan babel knocked us out of the CL this year.
ck said this on May 22, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Not really, we were already out via a dodgy penalty decision lol
Ozz raises an interesting point.
Maybe the reason Wenger’s signings are geared towards youth and the potential growth of players isn’t solely down to the playing side. Perhaps there is a premeditated financial aspect to the acquisitions of players like Coquelin.
It would be interesting if you could look into the proportion of our financial revenue which is the result of the sale of players under the age of 21 over a five year period.
I seriously doubt that Wenger buys young players that way. That kind of business is only profitable in rare cases. It was good when Stokes and Muamba were sold because they went for big amounts but think about all the players who go away for nothing. I am sure that initially, Wenger thought that Muamba, Stokes, Pennant, Bentley, Owusu and so many else had the potential to make it at Arsenal. Then they didn’t turn out as he had hoped so they were sold. It is a fair amount though that we have gathered from all those transfers.
Jay, What youngsters do you believe will be released this summer?
Leave Manure alone.They did us a huge favour last night.Priceless watching JT cry like a little girl.
Mark, i will write an article about this shortly
Cant believe fuckwits saying they want that odious twat Dein and the even worse Usmanov to take the club over so we can buy Kaka!!!!
Undelievable! How thick are these fools?
Have we signed Ben Arfa yet?
we must be joking!who is this little boy going to replace?we need a big player to replace Flamini,guys!
Cant believe fuckwits saying they want that odious twat Dein and the even worse Usmanov to take the club over so we can buy Kaka!!!!
Undelievable! How thick are these fools?
Have we signed Ben Arfa yet?
Spike said this on May 22, 2008 at 7:22 pm
hahahaha Spike, where have you been? asking about signing Ben Arfa?
The only thing I understand about this post, or this blog, is that Arsenal is a really cool name for a sports team. That is all. Carry on.
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This guy is still not on arsenal.com! how long do they take?!
“This guy is still not on arsenal.com! how long do they take?!”
He wont appear on the player profiles until just before the season starts, its always the same with them, so bloody slow. They still haven’t written profiles for Rasmussen or Shea even though they have “profiles”, how hard can it be? His transfer wont be announced either because hes been signed as a reserve player not a first team play and they only announce the arrival of first team players on the site (I’m presuming hes been signed as a reserve player anyway considering his age and lack of experience, but I’m not 100% thats the case).
Sorry….Johnny Cousens is me btw, i had myself as Johnny Cousens on my laptop and Maverik on my PC, just to clear up any confusion, i am the same person.
Hey guys, i’m from Laval… I just wanna told ya that this kid has potential but he’s not ready to play in the first team like Arsenal, he still has to grow at the physical level…
Arsenal is a french team :D
why do we always fulfil transfer speculation of young players and not mature ones?we hav enough promising players.its time to compliment them with the real stars just like barca did two years ago.
SEEN HIM TODAY HES GONNA BE BETTER THAN FLAMINI IN FEW YEARS!!!