Arsène Wenger was full of praise for Laurent Koscielny after the defender marked his 31st birthday with a superb acrobatic goal in Arsenal’s win over Southampton on Saturday.
The centre half equalised Petr Cech’s own goal with a spectacular bicycle kick just before the half hour, leading his manager to laud Koscielny’s “special character”.
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“It was his birthday today, and what I liked as well, he made that at 1-0 down,” the manager told Arsenal Player. “Not when you have scored three or four already and that shows he is a special character.
“We kept going, we were not maybe at our best on fluency and the speed of our movement. But we had the desire and the character and we kept going and gave absolutely everything.”
Wenger was also delighted with the performance of Francis Coquelin, who drove the team on from midfield.
"He had a great second half, Francis today. I think we suffered a little bit in the first half, we adjusted our position in the second half and it was much better. From then on, Francis became stronger and stronger."
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