Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has revealed the player he thinks should be first on the Arsenal teamsheet and it’s not who you would imagine he’d pick.

It’s Francis Coquelin.

“At the moment he’s the first person I’d put on my teamsheet,” the Ox told Arsenal player. “I love watching him play and it’s not often that you tend to say that.

“You love watching the Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozils of the world play, and someone who does the work which goes unnoticed you don’t really appreciate.

“I watch all the games and when I’m playing alongside Francis, there’s nobody better to play with. He brings that security and confidence that you have someone like that who can pick the ball up, intercept balls that should never be intercepted, win tackles that you don’t think he can win, and he’s also a quality player on the ball as well.

“You can never take away his technical ability and that goes unnoticed at times because he just does his job, but he’s probably one of the best technicians in our side as well.”

Le Coq has certainly been a revelation since his recall from Charlton earlier in the season as Arsenal looked to cope with the midfielder crisis the media are afraid of mentioning.

While discussing Manchester City this season the press are quick to bemoan the absence of Sergio Ageuro and with Chelsea, Diego Costa, but when mentioning Arsenal they simply wonder why they had such a slow start and if they’ll ever rectify the problem, refusing to acknowledge that that Gunners spent half the season with less than half a squad.

Olivier Giroud’s broken leg never gets mentioned, nor Mesut Ozil’s knee injury that ruled him out for three months. Mikel Arteta, Aaron Ramsey, Mathieu Debuchy, Jack Wilshere and Laurent Koscielny have all spent significant time out of the squad this season, prompting the manager to have to recall one player and play full-backs as emergency centrehalves.

Sorry, little bit tangent there. It just irks me so.

Francis Coquelin, he’s awesome.

Basically.