Laurent Koscielny has agreed personal terms with Stade Rennais and Bordeaux, according to reports in France.

French outlet RMC report that Koscielny has an agreement with Rennes, but he’s yet to meet with Arsenal’s management to negotiate a departure. For the defender’s part, he’s hoping to cancel his contract for free a year early.

RMC claim Koscielny prefers to join Rennes over Bordeaux, who they add are also interested. However, Manu Lonjon of Yahoo Sport FR reports both Bordeaux and Rennes are optimistic of signing him, and both have a contractual agreement with the player.

There still seems to be no real reason why Arsenal should agree to Koscielny’s request to cancel his contract early. Aside from anything else, the message it sends that you’ll let your club captain leave his contract if he refuses to play for long enough is awful.

If Bordeaux or Rennes had even offered a small fee of just a few million euros and Koscielny was currently on tour, this would be a completely different discussion.

Then it would become about whether we’re willing to cut the price on the sale of a loyal servant so he can end his career in his home country. Instead, Arsenal have been forced to play a PR game so they’re not seen as a club that let players walk for nothing.

Koscienly has handled this situation disastrously and he’ll have to bear the consequences, whatever they are.