When Arsene Wenger allowed the bumbling Phillipe Senderos to go on loan to AC Milan at the start of season 2008-09, the obvious reason would of course be that it was prelude to offloading the big, shaven headed Swiss centreback. Senderos failed to impress at AC Milan and at the end of the season, he was back at Arsenal, unwanted by both the Gunners and the Rossonneri.
The latent and covert reason behind Senderos’s shuffling around though was another young Swiss defender – Johann Djourou. Wenger saw him as a much better player than Senderos and at that point in time, Senderos was higher on the team’s pecking order than Djourou. Notoriously faithful to his hierarchical system, Wenger is one of the few coaches around Europe who hardly tinkers with team line-ups match-after-match. Renowned for detesting buying sprees, he always prefers to run a tight ship; making use of a small, dedicated group of players all season and hoping for the best against things like injuries and suspensions.
In all his championship-winning teams, Wenger has always, always relied on a core of 15-16 first teamers who are entrusted with carrying the team throughout the season. Wenger has always invested a fanatical trust in his first teamers and only the emergence of a player with extra-ordinary ability can convince him to breach that trust and introduce such player into that core group of “special ones”.
A sports scientist wearing the garb of a manager, Wenger relies heavily on tonnes and tonnes of technical mumbo-jumbo to assess his players before arriving at that core group on which his annual campaigns are entrusted with. Which is why he places a lot of faith in hierarchy.
With time on his hands and knowing he’ll never be fired if the team wins nothing at the end of each season, he concentrates on patient building and nurturing of players in an eternal process of erecting a jigsaw puzzle that the making of a team really is.
His hierarchical structure therefore is the be-all and end-all in his team building process. Gael Clichy was second to Ashly Cole for so long and only emerged as a first teamer after Cole left for Chelsea. Now, Kieran Gibbs is understudy to Clichy – preferred to another young hopeful, Armand Traore. Same applies to the right fullback position where Emmanuel Eboue is forever second-fiddle to Bacary Sagna. Manuel Almunia was also understudy to ‘mad’ Jens Lehmann for so long and Wenger was not prepared to alter the equation until season 2007-08 when the German started making blunder-after-blunder. That was the signal to promote Almunia over Lehmann and Wenger was faithful to the Spaniard despite heavy criticism of his performances.
It was only at the start of the current season, that he finally saw fit to relegate Almunia and promote his understudy, Fabianski.
Such methodical arrangement of course has its benefits because it encourages stability and disregards form which we all know can be fickle and fluctuates.
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| Heads I win...Djourou tussles with Arsenal's nemesis-in-chief, Chelsea's Didier Drogba |
Looking at the defensive side of things, though Wenger will not openly admit, but slowly he has promoted Djourou over and above Sebastian Squillaci despite the latter’s greater experience. It is a decision that may have a big impact on our season considering the performance of the young Swiss defender.
The starting line-up that filed out against Chelsea at the Emirates last Monday night, was the closest thing to Wenger’s first eleven. That is his dream team. The outcome of the game proved him right and confirmed his faith in those that started.
Djourou of course was part of that line-up and excelled as he has in all 12 games he’s played prior to the Chelsea game this season.After missing almost all of last season to a cruciate ligament knee injury, he seems to have come back with a vengeance to prove a point.
Three days later, when he was dropped for Squillaci, we saw how the defence gifted Wigan a goal that cost us two points. Guess who the scapegoat was? Poor Squillaci for the own goal he conceded under pressure.
Back at St. Andrews three days later, Djourou returned again and with him our first clean sheet in seven games! It wasn’t a coincidence. The youngman’s game has been on the up all season as his form has recorded a steady incline. In his first eight games for us this season, we never lost. I’m no way giving him sole credit for the team’s success in those matches, but a solid defence is always a reliable foundation on which wins are built.
Djourou so far this season has helped provide reassurance at the back. He has taken his chance with both hands since the enforced absence of the inspirational Thomas Vermaelen. The youngest of our four centre backs, he naturally would have been down at the ladder based on Wenger’s hierarchical stubbornness. But TV’s injury has opened a window for him and his performances have kept that window firmly ajar.
His composure and calm is in contrast to all around him. I particularly rate him in aerial battles where he uses his height well to intercept anything in the air. He, like TV, also loves bringing the ball out of defence and taking pressure off the backline. He hardly panics in any situation and unlike his departed compatriot Senderos, Djourou has anchored his style on reading attackers’ moves and nipping them in the bud before they strike.
Yet another jewel unearthened by the frugal Wenger? Surely yes and well polished too I daresay.
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