I acknowledge that he seemed to be on his way out, yes, but that was due to him not featuring during pre-season, the start of the season and then being sent on loan until January where he would be going into his last six months. Not because he didn't have any quality.

His loan at Freiburg was poor but I wouldn't use the term "unpromising". The Freiburg coach likes to play with two tall DM and he brought Coquelin in on loan as a utility player who could fill in at FB, CM, WM. As it happens he ended up being tasked with a very specific role in LM where he was asked to essentially cover space defensively (so his qualities were basically ignored by the coach).

His loan at Charlton was fine... He joined them on the third of November and was subbed on the next day for 30 minutes, four days later he played another 30 minutes. This was despite not being match fit as he hadn't played a game since Freiburg and then finished his spell with three straight 90 minutes and they even extended the loan!

His loan to Lorient was actually a great success. He played 25 games for them as a RM and by all accounts was good.

He also played in ~40 games for us in 11/12 and 12/13 before Freiburg where he showed all the qualities he is showing now. The difference is that Wenger was tasking him with a box-to-box role (i.e. He was Song/Ramsey's backup) and not even using a DM at all.

Sure he level of performance was not as high as it is now but the talent and qualities was on show back then. All it needed was for Wenger to switch to using a DM and giving him the instructions.

So did everyone know about him? No. But lots of people did and basically forgot all about him at Freiburg or heard he was 'the worst Bundesliga player' (which was nonsense) and just assumed he was shit.