Laurent Koscielny has been told that Arsenal won’t stop him leaving the club in January, according to a report.

TEAMtalk report that their sources have informed them that Arsenal would let Koscielny leave the club in the winter window if he gets an offer. The player’s agents are reportedly making initial enquiries around Europe, and Barcelona are interested ‘on a short-term basis’.

It would be a bit bizarre for Arsenal to let their club captain go right after he takes up the armband full-time and returns from injury. Koscielny is widely considered the team’s best centre-back option as well, so losing him without an adequate replacement would be ill-advised.

On the other hand, Arsenal attempts to offload Koscielny would fit with Raul Sanllehi’s recent comments about not letting players reach the final year of their contracts. Plus, the club might feel they can no longer rely on the defender, with his injury record.

It’s probably worth waiting for a more reliable source to give an update on the news for now. In the meantime, Koscielny is probably just focusing on getting match sharp. He’s currently being integrated back into full training with the squad, so it’ll hopefully only be a couple of weeks until he’s playing again.