Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker cannot believe the statistic surrounding him and Laurent Koscielny – they haven’t lost a game when both completing 90-minutes since January 2012.
The duo have formed a sensational partnership and haven’t tasted defeat since their 2-1 home loss to Manchester United TWO years ago.
Since then, Arsenal have gone on to play 32 matches with these two completing the full game, and they have won an impressive 23 of them.
Another statistic that shows how much improvement the defence has made in recent years is that in the last 11-home games, Arsenal have only conceded once, during the 1-1 draw with Everton.
Speaking to the club’s official website, Mertesacker admitted that he cannot believe the statistic surrounding him and Koscielny, but he admits that the run must keep going if they want to be celebrating silverware at the end of the season.
“It [the statistic] sounds not real for me,” he told Arsenal Player. “When I first heard it, it sounded very weird. It’s a good statistic but we have to build on that.
“I think we have shown a lot of people who criticised us a lot over the last two-and-a-half years that we know each other much better now and that we complement each other well, so it looks like that’s a good partnership [with Koscielny].
“But I wouldn’t say that’s only us or the two of us. I think when I speak about our centre backs I want to include always Thomas Vermaelen because he’s our captain and he’s always vital for everyone. He’s aware of situations, he gives us a boost, he came back from a heavy injury.
“The boss will rotate in the next couple of months and it’s really important that we are all in good fitness and all in a good shape so we can continue our good form and good partnerships with the three of us.”
Mertesacker then continued to talk about the partnership brewing with Koscielny.
“In this case I would say we have different qualities,” said Mertesacker. “One is more mobile, one has more height. It fits absolutely well together because [these] days the centre backs are not just tall and just have to [deal with] long balls and to head these balls.
“I’ve played with many good centre backs with different qualities. But Laurent, he’s one of the quickest players I’ve ever played with, one of the most mobile players, and he anticipates well a lot of balls so he has real strengths to be a good partner.
“For me it’s easy to play alongside him. Hopefully he’s going to say that to you as well when he speaks about me! We both take advantages from each other so that is the main key [to our success] I think.”
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt – @AlexsArticles
