With his £12m move to Valencia confirmed this winter, Arsene Wenger has shown he is no longer one that holds unto underperforming players for too long ; a trait which has seen him keep the likes Theo Walcott, Calum Chambers and David Ospina to mention but a few.
At 26, the French man is approaching his peak which might make his signing a bargain for Los Che if that eventually happens. Starved of game time this season having made only seven EPL starts , Coquelin is seen as out of depth and unable to perform consistently at a big club like Arsenal. Passionate, loved and a hard tackler, the defensive midfielder was unable to sustain his 2014-2015 form which saw him chalk up stats upon stats at the same time one of the best in the league at the time. Having being recalled in the winter from Charlton where he was on loan , the midfielder played in the middle alongside Santi Cazorla, protecting the back four as Cazorla showed his wizardry in attack . His form was so impressive at the time that Arsene Wenger even claimed he would have been a bargain if he was signed by £40m by the club . Coquelin's world will soon crumble after his long term knee injury which made Wenger splash £7m on Basel's Mohammed El'Neny as his direct replacement. Things will only get worse after the £35m signing of Granit Xhaka in 2016 which made the Frenchman surplus to requirements at the Emirates.
This season, Coquelin has also seen less game time after the recovery of Jack Wilshere as well as Wenger's switch to 3-4-3 which is a departure from his 4-2-3-1 meaning only one defensive player is named in the starting line -up.
At Valencia he will join up with Los Che who are third in the table while Arsenal are sixth (five points behind Liverpool) who are third.
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