Well. f'ing. put. I haven't really read or heard the whole Kos saga but something tells me you could spread blame all around.
No. This is squarely on Koscielny. There are lot of things to blame the club for, but this is not one of them.
I had a good chat with this guy before the match today in Charlotte. We both agreed it's gonna end poorly with Kos.
That's why it can be quite ill-advised to get a current player's name/number on your shirt. Up until a week or two ago, one would've thought that Kos would go down as one of the classiest "loyal servants" we ever had, likely to be our next testimonial player. But now in a rather surprising twist of fate, he's blown all that up. Wow! We were talking a bit about Lance Armstrong in the other thread. OK, maybe Laurent Koscielny hasn't tarnished his reputation quite to that degree, but what a selfish bonehead move on his part to go on strike because he didn't want his contract extended another year. Our friggin captain no less. For the last 10 year period, he was arguably my favorite player in many respects. That's obviously all out the window now.
Like RvP, and so many others before, players will--and should--look out for themselves first in this business. While I agree Kos could have been a revered Arsenal legend of this era, by forcing his way out this summer he likely altered that narrative significantly. I'm not sure he'll get the "you're dead to me" treatment most of gave RvP, but that really had more to do with him going to yanited (and winning) than anything else. I'm hoping that the fact there are so few (are there any) revered Arsenal legends of the past 10 years has more to do with the times and the state of players and their relationships to their club than it has to do with Arsenal specifically. Guys like Paul Scholes and Petr Cech are so few and far between these days. Who are the Arsenal legends of this decade? Cesc? Sagna? Wilshere? Cazorla? Ramsey? Monreal? Ozil? Do any of these guys fit the mold? If not, who's fault is that? Does it even matter?
Cazorla and Rambo are the only ones that warrant consideration for me. Rosicky would get consideration, but the man was injured so frequently it’s hard to not have that tarnish his legacy. The rest either weren’t here long enough, didn’t have a big enough impact, or left on bad terms. As a general rule, it’s still seems to hold that most players don’t perform as well once they leave the Arsenal. Gnabry is the major exception for me. To my view, Cesc and RVP performed comparably to their levels here after they left, but they were just on better teams once they left - and they both also left Arsenal in a bind by forcing their moves in very public fashion. They were potential all-time favorite players for me until they left, but the way the left, much akin to Koz.
Good servant I feel like we weren’t true to our word and triggered an extra year when it was agreed we wouldn’t?
No way to know that with any certainty. But even if that's true, I don't think Koscielny handled it well, and I say that as someone who really likes him. Sad to see it end this way, but I still wish him well in his next endeavor.