The curious case of Johan Djourou

Morning everybody, apologies for the late blog, my car decided it was going to have a water leak suddenly last night, so I’ve had to take it to the garage this morning. Cars ay? Just what I wanted the day before the bank holiday weekend! So I thought ya know what, I’ll do my blog, that’ll make me feel better! Then I realised what I’m doing the blog on…

Johan Djourou.

*tumbleweed*

…

*cough*

It’s ok to leave if you want to, nobody will judge you, I certainly won’t.

No, but in all seriousness I’d like to discuss the 26-year-old Swiss centre back. He’s currently on loan to German team Hannover 96 of the Bundesliga after seeing it as a good opportunity to get some first team football, as apparently he wasn’t enjoying being Arsenal’s article man for whenever we did something wrong.

How selfish, when Arsenal lose do you know what I wanna see, I want to come onto the Arsenal site and see good ‘ol Johan telling me everything’s going to be alright. Good thing that since then we’ve not fucked up all that much otherwise I’d be more broken than QPR’s first team chemistry. With Hughes as their Manager. Don’t you hate Hughes?

Anyway, do you think it’s likely he’ll return to us? Well if you look at his stats, he’s actually been pretty impressive this year. In the 16 appearances he made for the club, when you compare his interceptions, clearances, blocked shots and tackles to both Koscielny and Mertesacker, it’s interesting to see that he either equalled or bettered them in each of these departments.

Which is surprising to say the least, now I’m not saying he’s better than either of them because he played less games than them both in a league that’s of lesser quality than the Premier League, however is he good enough to be a backup for us?

The way I see it is that Wenger is trying to build the squad in pairs, two players in every department that are of a similar mould that can push each other to compete, we’ve got Koscielny/Vermaelen, Gibbs/Monreal and Sagna/Jenkinson just to name a few. Now I do think we need a centre back for when big Per is out, because when Vermaelen comes in there’s a bit of an unbalance between him and Koscielny, they just don’t play well with each other. So could Djourou be Per’s backup? He’s definitely of the same mould, and he’s got some quality in him, think back to when we beat Barcelona 2-1, him and Koscielny were absolute rocks at the back.

Now the problem with him is firstly consistency, but to be fair he’s not going to have that when he’s only played occasionally and more often than not at right back too. His second problem is the fans view of him, a lot of fans dislike him and I think this is partly down to his spell at right back where he was quite frankly, appalling. Since then I’ve not heard a good thing about the guy, there was a point where he built up a run in our team and was literally a good luck charm, we just wasn’t conceding anywhere near as much and we’d not lost for something like 12 games.

Now to be honest I don’t think he’s good enough for Arsenal, I do have a soft spot for him, he’s been at the club longer than pretty much anyone else, he’s never been controversial and he’s never complained once. I think you’ve gotta give credit where credits due, he’s been very professional throughout his time here, but things have changed now, which is why we don’t need him.

When he joined the club we was looking to maintain our Champions League spot and to be fair he did his job when asked to, but now we’re looking to be a title challenging squad, and that’s why he’s not good enough. It’s not a criticism, he’s still a very good player and will definitely do well no matter where he goes, but I don’t feel that’s us. I can imagine Arsenal and Hannover will find a solution that will result in a permanent deal, which I think will be good for all parties.

I do think we need another centre back though, of the same mould to Per too so they can swap when necessary. I don’t think we need to be aiming for somebody to replace him because I’m happy with the partnership him and Koscielny have formed, but just to challenge and push him further. It’s interesting to note that in the 15 games that they’ve played together, they’ve won nine, drawn six, lost none, kept seven clean sheets, achieved 33 points and conceded 11 goals. Why fix something that isn’t broken ya know?

Speaking of our defense, it’s interesting to see what will happen in the right back department, will Sagna go? I think he will personally, to either Monaco or PSG is what seems to be on the cards.

We was looking at Polish Borussia Dortmund player Piszczek, but he’s having surgery after the Champions League final which means he’s out for five months, so he’s no longer an option. I wonder who will be brought in, part of me hopes it’s someone younger as I love Jenkinson and would love to see him be the first name on the sheet week in, week out. He’s got as much passion as anyone of us, give him the spot and he’ll shine in my eyes.

Some quick gossip before I go, Chamakh may be returning to Bordeux on a free, we may be considering David Villa and Cesc from Barca (which I’d love) and although it’s non-Arsenal related, I’ve heard that it’s very possible that Suarez will be an Atletico Madrid player next season.

And to finish off the blog, a great quote I saw yesterday:

Yes, we are eight years without a trophy, blame us as much as you like but we don’t take shortcuts to glory, we don’t buy players with millions, we don’t lose faith in our gaffer and we don’t steal our arch rivals skipper, just rememberr we will win a trophy, we won’t buy it, we won’t steal it and we won’t lose our patience. We are the Arsenal!

Have a good day everybody, more tomorrow.