Laurent Koscielny made Garth Crooks’ BBC Team of the Week as well as Jamie Redknapp’s Daily Mail team while Hector Bellerin also made an appearance.
If you missed it at the weekend, Laurent Koscielny was imperious in the Arsenal defence as he got his body in the way of everything. Capping a great performance against Chelsea with a goal, he was named Man of the Match. That wasn’t enough for the Mail on Sunday, however, who gave the Arsenal captain a laughable 6.
There is no surprise that he made Crooks’ Team of the Week. It would have been hard to find a reason to leave him out and even the former Tottenham, Stoke and Manchester United man knew that.
“The Frenchman is a hard man to keep down when he’s in this mood,” Crook’s wrote about the first Arsenal defender to score 20 goals. “He’s also a real threat in the opposition’s penalty area on set plays and so it proved against a Chelsea team I didn’t recognise from the side I saw earlier in the season.”
Redknapp also selected the Frenchman while including Hector Bellerin who is unlikely to be seen again until well into next season.
David J. Chao: Video appears to show quad tendon tear, not ACL tear
by Dan Critchlow
Former NFL head team doctor and practising orthopaedic surgeon David J. Chao says Hector Bellerin appears to have torn his left knee quad tendon, based on the video of the injury circulating on social media.
Bellerin had only just returned from a calf injury to make his first start of the new year against Chelsea over the weekend. However, after a good performance as Arsenal raced to a two-goal lead, the right-back suffered a new blow that forced him off the pitch on a stretcher.
The immediate concern was that the defender might have torn his ACL, as Rob Holding did recently. That injury would require an extended period on the sidelines, possibly even up to a year out. Chao provided a different diagnosis based on his own viewing of the footage:
By video, #HectorBellerin @Arsenal tears his left knee quad tendon. Doesn't appear to be ACL, but still surgery and at least as severe. https://t.co/LFcHl5F7oA
— David J. Chao, MD (@ProFootballDoc) January 19, 2019
*Bellerin
— David J. Chao, MD (@ProFootballDoc) January 19, 2019
Chao isn’t the only one with theories though, as another popular assessment on social media right now is that it could be a Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL) injury. That would be the quickest recovery time of the three alternatives.
Once again, these are only assessments made based on one replay from one angle on Twitter. It’s worth waiting for Arsenal’s official tests and scans before jumping to conclusions.