Djourou to Return?

By: Martin | March 15th, 2011

Didn’t see this coming.

Apparently Johan Djourou has undergone a whole battery of tests after his injury against Manchester United, which Arsene Wenger said after the match would keep him out for the rest of the season, back in his native Switzerland. And the Swiss FA are now saying that the injury was not as serious as originally feared and believed. They say that while the shoulder is dislocated, there is no bone or nerve damage, and the ligament damage is not as serious as previously thought. And they’re actually saying that he may be available for Switzerland’s friendly match on March 26.

It’s hard to know what to believe at this point. But you’ll recall that back in February against Newcastle, Djourou injured his knee and it looked quite bad as he limped off (his absence was a big reason we dropped 2 points that day, remember). The Swiss FA originally posted a statement to their website that he was out a month, but quickly took it down after only leaving it up a few hours. A few days later they said the injury was not that serious, and he was actually back within a week. So we’ve been down this road a little bit with them before. I don’t know — maybe it’s because the Swiss seem like a no-nonsense, trustworthy bunch, and I can’t think of any reason they would have to put out inaccurate information on a player’s injury, but I’m hopeful about this. If he can come back after the international break for our final 9 matches, that would be a massive, massive lift to the squad. So let’s keep our fingers crossed, yeah?

Elsewhere, while nothing official has been announced, it does appear that the Lehmann thing is actually going to happen. And it must be said, he’s saying all the right things — he has said that we can still win a title, and that there is no competition between him and Almunia, that he is just here to be a back-up, etc. While he is a fierce competitor and I’m sure deep in his heart he wouldn’t mind playing in some key matches down the stretch for Arsenal, it’s nice to hear that he understands his position and why he’s being brought in.

The more I think about this, the more I think it’s a good move. No, he’s not a world-beater; yes, I will be very concerned if we do have to rely on him. But what other options did we have? James Shea? No offense to him, but I’m not sure he’s really ever going to be Arsenal-quality, and do we really want to have to turn to a 19 year-old who has never played for the first-team in an important match at the end of the season? Any of the other emergency loan options floated around were equally uninspiring — the fact is that if any of those guys were very good, they wouldn’t be available for an emergency loan in the first place. And with an emergency loan from another club, the new player would have to get acclimated to the new club, the coaches, the facilities, his new teammates, etc., just in time for the loan to end. Whereas with Lehmann, all we have to do is set up his locker and tell him what time to show up — he knows where to park his car and where to go, he knows the coaches and the staff, and he knows most of the players on the team.

And also, the hope is that, like Slo did when he came back at the end of last season, he provides some mettle and leadership. He hopefully won’t even get on the pitch, but having a guy around who started every match for the Invincibles team, who made a number of key saves which won the FA Cup for us in 2005 when we were badly outplayed by United, can only be a good thing. He’s a link to more successful times, and he’s never been shy about expressing himself, so the hope is that he’ll give the team a bit of a lift and some experience and leadership that we may be lacking. We’ll see.

That’s about all the news we have for today — let’s all keep our fingers crossed that this good news on Djourou turns out to be credible.

And finally, just for laughs’ sake, here’s a video of Lehmann relieving himself during a match:

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Category: Arsenal News, Injury Report, Johan Djourou

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Tonyattwood

Are Premier League matches fixed? The final proof. Part 2.

The first step towards resolving the issues raised in part one must be to ask what we feel about the quality of refereeing. I believe the first article reminded us that there are anomalies in the current situation, such as the fact that some referees in England are flagrantly ignoring and disobeying Fifa rules – such as the rule about hampering goalkeepers, or the one about playing advantage to a defender. I also brought up the fact that in using a consistent marking system for refs, some refs do fall very short of the mark, and clearly have problems in running a game. Not all, but some. And we observe that nothing happens to these refs.

These simple facts – and Walter’s series of articles dealt with these in much more depth, and they are all still available on this site – suggest that something odd is happening, something which does not fit with the “nothing is wrong” or “it all balances out in the end” theories. Combine this with Dogface’s analysis of referees made before games and the fact that it is possible to make predictions about how individual referees will behave, and we clearly have something to be concerned about.

But here is my real point. Everyone can see that Fifa instructions are not being carried out by refs in England, and yet no one is doing anything about it, and the refs are not commenting on it. Even if you don’t go along with any other point being put forward here, you do have to ask, “Why? is this happening?” Or if you want something fairly straightforward to resolve try this one: “How come that the FA and Fifa can’t even agree whether the FA has the right to take action in the Rooney affair?” We are not actually talking here about whether Rooney committed a foul or whether he should have been shot at dawn, but actually we are asking, does our governing body have the power to take action? If even that can’t be agreed then something has gone desperately wrong with the governance of the game.

And that is all before we get to the Dogface analysis. So this is my main point. We can keep this debate dead simple and look at very easy to grasp issues, and even at that level there are huge issues that urgently need answering.

Can you imagine this elsewhere in our society? “I don’t think we can handle this in the County Court,” said the District Judge. “Well its certainly not our area,” says the Bench in the Magistrates Court. “Not one of mine,” says the Judge in the High Court. “Ah well, better just leave it then,” says everyone. Put like that it sounds crazed, and that indeed is exactly what it is happening in football. Makes a bit of news for half a day and then it dies away – and yet the questions being raised here are utterly fundamental to the game. Without the resolution of these issues there is no game, because key issues are being ignored.

This is why I think that comments such as “let’s stop arguing about this and face the fact that Wenger is no good” really don’t get it. If the League is bent, as I am suggesting given the evidence presented over time on this site, then it doesn’t matter how good or bad Wenger is. Not a bit.

Put all this together and what really concerns me is that there is nothing being done to investigate the growing level of evidence that something is wrong, save in the very specific area of match fixing for gambling purposes. For example there is a Fifa enquiry going on into a couple of international friendlies in which every goal scored was a penalty. As usual the statements emerging are those that talk about “unusual betting patterns”.

As I am sure you will know, investigations often take place into “unusual betting patterns”, and some refs are suspended for collaboration. The betting industry has a great interest in protecting its own huge earnings from football, so any thought that some punter is cheating gets them on the move immediately.

I am quite happy to say that match fixing of that type (1000-1 against every goal in two games being a penalty) is being controlled in English football. But there is nothing happening anywhere to investigate match fixing on the Italian “Calciopoli” model where refs were continually given favours in order to give occasional decisions to certain teams.

It is not as if top level English football has always been immune to such activities – if you have read the story of Arsenal’s promotion in 1919 you’ll know that is was caused in no small part by the club’s determination to publicise the match fixing by Manchester United and Liverpool, which the League wanted to sweep under the carpet. That wasn’t Calciopoli but it was corruption on a significant scale – corruption to ensure that a London team went down in the final season before the cessation for the First World War, rather than a northern team.

And it almost worked – until Sir Henry Norris stepped in and demanded that the matter be properly discussed – and ultimately three Man United and four Liverpool players were banned for life – but no action was taken against the clubs.

OK that example (close to our hearts as Arsenal fans) is nearly 100 years old, but my point is that even 100 years ago the FA and the League were conspiring not to investigate match fixing and wholesale corruption. I’m arguing that for reasons I will discuss later, nothing has changed. And if you don’t like the 100 year old example, try going back over the case of Bruce Grobbelaar. When he sued the Sun for libel, the Supreme Court (the House of Lords at that time) ruled that he was not damaged since there was enough evidence of wrongdoing on his part that his reputation was already torn to shreds. That case revealed that it was indeed possible for one player to fix a game. Again not what I am suggesting is happening here, but in fact something far harder to organise.
Of course my historic comparisons don’t show us that match fixing in the Italian style is happening. And yes, my thought that there is something seriously wrong with refereeing in England might also be explained through the fact that there are some very poor refs out there, and Walter has made the very strong point that we have such a tiny number of refs, and the moderating of these refs is so secret that it is not surprising something is wrong.

But that leaves us with the question, why are we in this situation? Why do we have so few top level referees? And why are the marks they get not revealed? And why are refs who get under 70% marks not removed to a lower division? Why do we not have refs that follow Fifa rules, and why do authorities in England allow them to get away with this? Why can’t our FA and Fifa even agree as to whether the FA has power to look again at the Rooney Event.

My point therefore is simple. If you argue that there is no Italian style corruption, you have to answer the questions in the previous paragraphs. If you can’t find an answer that involves no corruption, then corruption is all you have left.

Given that Dogface has shown us that it is possible to predict which ref will cause problems for Arsenal, then we begin to see that even with an answer to the “why are we in this situation” question in some way, we are still not in the clear. The problem is much deeper, because without giving any evidence to suggest everything is fine, and without even bothering to consider our evidence, the powers that be are just pushing on saying, “oh its all ok really.”

Indeed we could begin to argue that it is the fact that nothing is being done in the face of this evidence that something is wrong, (other than the continuous attempt to show that the problem either doesn’t exist – as in the “refs are getting fed up with all this criticism” type of comment – or that if it does exist it is only as a result of gambling and the gambling industry always lets us know) that actually does show something is seriously wrong.

In short, if nothing was wrong, the authorities would have no difficulty in knocking down the arguments and points made by Walter, Dogface, and (as summariser) myself.

If the authorities were being straight about this situation they would be investigating Dogface’s predictions, and putting the obvious errors (lack of refs, not removing refs when they get low marks, differences with Fifa) to right.

It is the lack of activity that is the final nail in the coffin of a just and fair EPL.

So let’s conclude with a look at why the authorities in the UK, and their allies in parts of the media, don’t want us to even think that something might be wrong.

The EPL makes big money out of TV and some money out of gambling. The gambling industry makes money out of the EPL. The media invest big money in football rights, and then gradually get that money back (or in Sky’s case, quickly get that money back).

If the feeling began to develop that there really was something wrong and that an Italian style corruption had seeped through the game then the league, the FA, the media and the gambling industry would all lose out very heavily. In fact one can say that the whole bunch of them has a very strong vested interest in football being shown not to be corrupt.

That is why they not only don’t take the allegations seriously, but also why they don’t bother to answer any of the evidence put forward. They can’t risk the notion being put about that football is bent. Exactly as 100 years ago.

But it is even worse than that. By refusing to answer the very basic questions like why there are so few referees, and why directives from Fifa are routinely ignored by some referees in England, and why the marks given to refs are not made public, and why refs with poor marks are not removed more often, it is clear that there is something wrong. If there were not, then no one would be hiding behind ridiculous excuses like “it balances out in the end” and “referees are getting fed up with all this criticism”.

When public faith in a body set up to examine or to rule is upset, everything gets blown out the water. And that is what the FA, the league, Sky, Fifa, the BBC, Micky Mouse TV and ITV are all seeking to protect.

Let me finish with a repeat of one basic point. If the English authorities and Fifa can’t actually agree on whether the English authorities could look again at Rooney’s actions on the field play, what the fuck is going on? It is a fundamental rule. A basic point from the rulebook.

Whatever it is that is going on, it certainly isn’t straight.
don

i got bored reading it after a few sentences.
Kxevin

For those who might not have heard, spare a thought for Eric Abidal, who is going under the knife Friday to remove a (hopefully benign) tumor from his liver. Crazy stuff, that reminds us all that this really is just a game, and only life is for real.
Sairax

Best wishes to Abidal and his family. Hope his surgery goes well and makes a full recovery.
Desailly

Totally agree.
Really helps to put things into perspective.
All our petty rivalries and "hatreds" suddenly seem so trivial.
I mean...tens of thousands of people just lost their homes and everything they own...
Darren_V

Negative: Manure win
Positive: More games for them
Negative: Arsenal rarely seem to take advantage of help given
Positive: Sp*rs are shit.
Gunnerlurker

Normally, I start by thanking The Martin and/or Sairax but after the two videos I just watched I think I will forego that today. My favourite part of today's read was the foreshadowing of the first "related stories" headline...

"Good Injury News on Djourou; Bendtner Calls Future in Doubt; Barcelona Give Up Pursuit of Cesc, Skeptical Question Mark?"

Martin, I take it we still have skeptical questions marks in place on Djourou injury; Bendtner future; and Barca giving up on Cesc.
Martin

I know it's premature, but I just wanted to point out that unless Inter can turn this deficit around in a big way, as of March 15, there will be no Italian teams left in European competition. None. Zero. I'm way too lazy to try to look it up, but I suspect that hasn't been true in a long, long time. Terrible year for the Italian game.
Darren_V

Beware the Ides of March...
Sairax

Inter scored their 3rd away goal! Holy crap! What kind of Juju are you working here??
Martin

Ugh. I know. But I'm no great fan of Bayern, either, so I don't much care either way.
Sairax

I don't have a horse in that race either, but the game's been good.
Martin

So are we rooting for Manchester United to go through or not? On the one hand I would take some pleasure in seeing them knocked out by Marseille, but on the other hand, it might be in our best interest to have them advance and add two more matches to their already congested calendar after the international break. Thoughts?
Homey_Mills

I thought about that earlier. I can't really bring myself to root for them. Ultimately, I think it comes down to how we play. Especially how we play against them at home in that one game. I dunno if adding games to their calendar will affect too much.
Somehow I have this sinking feeling that we're going to let it slip away from us. Just the general direction of the team lately, plus the injuries, plus the results from recent seasons. I think Man Utd will drop points, but we'll drop more. Hate to say it. So with that in mind, I'll root against them in the CL.
Homey_Mills

And by the way, I see that Nani is back in their lineup. So it seems to me that all that's missing is Rio. Ugh. I must admit they're a lot healthier at the moment.
Martin

Brilliant use of the jinx, Homey -- O'Shea has to come off with a hamstring injury, and then half an hour later, his replacement, Rafael has to come off, as well. You hate to see guys hurt, but that does leave them very, very vulnerable at a key position.
Homey_Mills

Thank you. It worked according to plan. I always feel like a terrible fan when I cheer injuries to the opponent. But I must confess that sometimes I secretly do. Not that I want major injuries... just enough to ruin a few games. Does that make me a bad person? I mean, these athletes are still being paid a load of money, so we shouldn't feel too bad if they get hurt, right?
Martin

Yeah, I feel the same way. The moral/philosophical jujitsu I perform to justify it is that while I am not happy that a player got hurt, if the injury is not serious, and makes it more likely that Arsenal will be successful, I can both acknowledge the sadness of the injury while being happy about the increased chance of success.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but it kind of works for me, I guess -- I sleep fine at night. But I definitely can't take any real glee from injuries, especially serious ones -- it's always so weird when the same Arsenal fans who were flipping out and defending Diaby over the Barton tackle were gleefully talking about how, e.g., Carragher cut open Nani's leg.
Homey_Mills

Yeah, I don't want to be a hypocrite about it. I would say that the tackle on Nani was a very bad one, and has no place in the game. I'm saying that as a neutral fan of the game. Yet there was still a part of me that was glad Nani was out a while.
Sairax

Don't know if you saw my twitter convo about the Nani injury when it happened. I was saying it looked horrible etc etc. Replies I got were not the kindest
Homey_Mills

I spend enough time on here and the internet in general. I've thus far been successful at avoiding the twitterverse. I'm sure all the replies are reasonable, articulate, and well-informed.
Sairax

You are much better for avoiding twitter. Trust me.
Sairax

Mancs just scored their second. Can't see them not going through now.
Martin

You forgot about West Brown. Come on Marseille, push on and do this -- it would be absolutely hilarious.
Homey_Mills

Indeed. So now we'll try to see the glass as half full, and say that their scheduling problems will cause them to lose the league.
(Somehow I can't bring myself to say "fixture congestion." It sounds too European to me.)
Martin

Vidic is out today, too. But yeah, definitely a lot healthier than us. For example, they're not on their 4th choice goalkeeper...
Wolffy

What is up with our medical staff? It is pretty bad that these guys can't tell when someone has a concussion or not, and the diagnosis for player injuries are always wrong. As a fan it is a little annoying to hear we will not have Van Persie for 3 weeks to have him come back in a week and then to hear Djorou is donezo, only to have him back in 2 weeks.

Don't get me wrong this is excellent news, but I wish they would really do their due diagnosis diligence before hastily saying we have a long-term injury. I don't know could be Wenger's influence maybe?, I think he likes to keep other coaches guessing like that or something (who knows).
Zak3

Great news even for neutral footy fans. What a character this guy, hope he gets some appearances just to do something crazy.
Sairax

Uh yeah, so....BBC Sport reporting this interesting tidbit of information (from BBC Sport David):

#Arsenal say SwissFA info on Djourou "inaccurate". #Afc expect him to have surgery after seein specialist Thur + wd then miss rest of season
Martin

Ugh. Damn you, Switzerland. I'm going to go steal a Swatch and pound it with a hammer.
Homey_Mills

My guess is he'll be back in time to get re-injured on international duty. And then be out for the rest of the Arsenal season.
mobbdeen

"The Swiss seem like a no -nonsense trustworthy bunch..."

I Just had a Massimo Bussacca flashback. Ugh...
Wolffy

True hahaa
Martin

Hmmm. Good point. In my mind's eye, I had imagined all the Swiss doctors looking exactly like Roger Federer, but Bussacca is a much scarier proposition.
Orion

Don't generalise man, I've been to Switzerland. Most of them are really nice and trustworthy, just like Roger Federer. Busacca is to Switzerland as.. um.. as Ashley Cole is to England. Kinda.
Gunneron

The video of Lehmann pissing is just fucking Hilarious. Well it was not for nothing they called him
Mad Jens. Hope his return will bring something to the dressing room just like Sol's apparently did last season
Sairax

Speaking of Djourou, I thought I'd share this little gem that I came across last night. I should warn you...can't...unsee...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Gunnerson

Well, can't wear my Djourou shirt ever again...you owe me money, Sairax...
Orion

Thanks for, you know, scarring me for life.
tinomuvonga m

At the second time of viewing I still don't understand what I have just watched.
Wolffy

yeah what the hell is that, a commercial?

I know European commercials are a little out there, but I am really missing the point if that's what it is.
Martin

I believe, sir, that you just watched a Johan Djourou sex tape. Twice.
Benjamin Dockter

What!? That was hilarious.
tinomuvonga m

I'll take Djourou's return with a grain of salt.
sandra350

The return of Mad Jens is not only a wonderful boost to Arsenal, it's a fantastic boost for football in general just for the entertainment value.
Mjc

"...his absence was a big reason we dropped 4 points that day..."
It was a horrible way to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory, but I think you're exagerating the number of points dropped...!!!
Martin

Ha, yeah -- got "dropped 2 points" and "conceded 4 goals" mixed up in my head. It's fixed now. Although it did feel like we had somehow dropped 4 points...
Mjc

Couldn't agree more...!