Villarreal linked with Middling Valencia midfielder

On the heels of selling Ferrarn Torres, the dismantling of Valencia’s barely above average roster continues. Villarreal have now, according Cadena Ser Valencia been linked to Francis Coquelin. Coquelin, while at Arsenal, was legitimately one of the worst Premier League players I’ve ever seen, but really turned his career around when he moved to the second best team in the Valencian Community.

Coquelin is pretty alert when playing passing lanes, is a good tackler, and is a decent long ball passer. He’s also not a bad dribbler. He does a decent range of things at a ‘fine’ level. Don’t expect him to do anything special and he probably won’t disappoint you. I wouldn’t label injuries a major concern, but it is worth noting he missed ten matches with injuries last year and is 29 years old. Here’s a statistical profile of him from last season:

footballslices.com

If we had a starting defensive midfielder that we were very high on and were just looking for a backup, Coquelin would be a wonderful addition. He’s a very good backup DM for a La Liga level. He’s not, in my estimation, a regular starter for a Europa league level club (in fact last season he wasn’t a regular starter for a club that couldn’t even make the Europa League). If Valencia is really going to clear out their roster in the way the transfer rumors have suggested they will, this isn’t the midfielder of their’s that I want. I personally am not too worried about this rumor, yet. There’s not really that much smoke around it, but this is something to keep in eye on in the days to come as our transfer window starts to shape up.

Bracing for another comment section with Jiwonsi mouthing off about whatever thing he’s grumpy about today.