Laurent Koscielny can be Arsenal's new invincible

The risk to Arsenal was minuscule yet the personal threat to the Frenchman suddenly became considerable.

Joe Cole had decided to give chase and, with a high and late lunge, he went straight through Koscielny. The red card for Cole was automatic but the wider concern was for the damage inflicted on Koscielny.

“For about two minutes, I feared that it was broken just here,” he says, pointing to the back of his right shin.

Few thought that Cole’s challenge was malicious but the message appeared simple: welcome to the Premier League. Yet the subsequent answer from Koscielny was even more emphatic.

He simply satisfied himself that his leg was badly bruised rather than fractured and played through the pain to help Arsenal to a valuable 1-1 draw.

Despite being sent off himself in stoppage time following a tame second bookable offence, he had emerged from his Anfield baptism of fire with considerable credit.

In person, Koscielny is slight of build and refreshingly humble, yet clearly fiercely determined and ambitious. Last season, in the French League, he did not lose a single one-on-one challenge.

“It’s a big battle - part bluff, part judgment,” he says. “I like the physical challenge of the English league - I am not afraid of anything. I felt a good pressure at Anfield.

"Until then I didn’t know the intense game of the English league but I saw what it was, experienced it, felt it and I enjoyed it.”

Koscielny’s eventful Premier League debut becomes even more impressive when set against the remarkable upward curve of his career.

Seven years ago - as Arsenal were beginning their ‘Invincible’ season - he was still at college and training for a career in information technology.

Even four years ago, he was often on the bench for French Division Two side Guincamp. And, last year, he was still only just beginning his first season in France’s La Ligue following a £1.5 million move from Tours to Lorient.

Koscielny turned 25 this week and, against Bolton, he will make his home Premier League debut after missing the win against Blackpool through suspension.

An Achilles tendon injury to Thomas Vermaelen means that he will be partnered in central defence by another new signing, Sebastien Squillaci.

“Football was not my obsession at all,” says Koscielny. “I would never have thought at the age of 15 or 16 that I would become a professional. In my hometown of Tulle there was no professional team.

"I just watched it on television and played for enjoyment. When I was younger I was a striker but, over time, I moved back into midfield and finally defence.”

That experience of playing as an attacking player has helped Koscielny develop into the sort of ball-playing centre-half that would instantly command Arsène Wenger’s attention.

Even so, he still vividly recalls the shock when he was first informed that Wenger wanted to bring him to Arsenal.

“I was on holiday in Brive with my family. I was completely surprised because I had played one season in the French first division and I didn’t think such a big club would have come to see me,” he said.

Within minutes of the call - and with the support of his parents Bernard and Valerie - he had decided that he wanted to sign for Arsenal; a club he calls “a reference for football”.

It took five weeks for a fee of around £8.5 million to be agreed. “I went through every state of mind, I did not want to miss out on the challenge,” he says.

He finally met Wenger in Paris. “He said he was interested in my quality, that I had progressed well and I was intelligent in the matches,” said Koscielny.

It was a statement of some confidence in a player with so little experience and, in the longer term, Wenger has high hopes for his partnership with Vermaelen.

Koscielny says he has been taken aback with everything at Arsenal - “the training pitches are better than the pitches we play on in the French League” - although there are raised eyebrows when the topic turns to English food.

“The French like good food, they do everything to get a nice taste. Here it is different, I’m not used to it yet,” he says, smiling.

Yet even the local cuisine cannot temper his enthusiasm for this new adventure.

“I have been on the crest of a wave but it is just the beginning; I haven’t proved anything yet,” he says. “I hope my story shows to everybody that, if you work hard and believe in yourself, anything can happen: even your wildest dreams.”