Early in June, we relayed a story from TuttoMercatoWeb in Italy claiming that Bordeaux, now managed by Paulo Sousa, ‘liked’ the idea of bringing Laurent Koscielny to the south of France.
The defender still has a year left on his contract at Arsenal, but the general consensus is an exit this summer is likelier than the veteran seeing out his contract at the Emirates next season.
With this in mind, a return to France, his home country, to play in Ligue 1 seems like a good move, taking a step down without giving up on top competitive football altogether.
Well, this interest from Bordeaux in the former France international has now been confirmed in France by L’Equipe journalist Emery Taisne, who explained how things came about.
Info @lequipe : Pour remplacer Jules Koundé, en partance pour le Séville FC, Bordeaux a fait de Laurent Koscielny sa priorité. Premiers contacts noués en avril. @girondins
— Emery Taisne (@EmeryTaisne) July 2, 2019
The catalyst for all this is the expected sale of Jules Koundé to Sevilla, as the young centre-back should move to La Liga in the coming days.
Because of this, Bordeaux have made Koscielny their ‘priority’ to replace the 20-year-old, with the first contacts between all parties going back as far as April.
Certainly not a like for like replacement, the Arsenal defender would bring more experience to a backline that is comprised of Pablo (28), Mexer (30) and 23-year-old Vukasin Jokanovic, who spent the 2017-18 season on loan at Eibar.
