Laurent Koscielny Appears to Doubt Arsene Wenger's Arsenal Selection vs. Chelsea

Arsenal star Laurent Koscielny has seemingly questioned manager Arsene Wenger's team selection following their 3-1 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday. 

Per the Mirror's Darren Lewis, he said: 

"

I think we played some players in front of others and I think we should have played more as a team and there was space to do so. They hit us on the counter.

It will be difficult now. Mathematically, nothing is done but we know that it is going to be very complicated.

We need to come back to the quality of our game, our passing, movement.

"

The defeat has left the Gunners 12 points behind the Blues and in fourth place in the Premier League, just two points ahead of Manchester United in sixth.

Arsenal were outplayed at Stamford Bridge—a familiar sight for their fans, who've seen the same cycle of crashing out of the title race early for over a decade.

The Press Association's Mark Mann-Bryans believed Wenger's selection was the best it could have been based on who was available:

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Francis Coquelin were the only central-midfield pairing the Frenchman could name, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil are the team's biggest stars and both Theo Walcott and Alex Iwobi had shown good form in recent weeks.

The team performed poorly across the board, but it was perhaps Sanchez and Ozil who were the biggest disappointments.

Bleacher Report UK's James McNicholas believed as much and argued the German perhaps shouldn't have been selected:

ESPN's Alex Shaw also singled out Ozil for criticism:

Indeed, the playmaker has long been criticised for his failure to perform in Arsenal's biggest games.

The 28-year-old has racked up 29 goals and 51 assists in 144 appearances for the Gunners, but only five and six of those, respectively, have come against the Premier League's other traditional top-six contenders—Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City, and most of those were last season.

Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images

None have come in the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League, either. For a player of Ozil's undoubted talent, he's not exerting nearly enough influence over those matches.

It leaves Wenger in a difficult position, however—if the Gunners want Ozil to be happy at the Emirates Stadium and put pen to paper on a new deal, they can't drop him every time an important game comes around.

Much needs to change at Arsenal before they can be recognised as genuine title challengers once again, whether that's new personnel, new tactics or a new boss—perhaps even a combination of all three.

In the meantime, all eyes will be on Wenger, Ozil and Co. when they take on Bayern Munich in the Champions League once again. It will be another huge test for the manager and his players, and they'll need to improve collectively on their disastrous performance at Chelsea to have a chance of progressing.