Never sign players that your manager doesn’t want.
It seems fairly obvious, but apparently not to Chelsea. The Blues sealed a deadline day move for Papy Djilobodji from Nantes in the summer, despite José Mourinho clearly having no interest in a player who had been rejected by West Brom and Sunderland.
Well, on Thursday Djilobodji left Arsenal’s upcoming opponents to join Bundesliga side Werder Bremen on loan until the end of the season. During his time at Chelsea, Djilobodji played a grand total of one minute, coming off the bench in a 4-1 League Cup defeat of Walsall back in September. He didn’t play in the Premier League and was only on the bench for two league games.
Clearly he wasn’t going to play against Arsenal on Sunday, but his time at Chelsea is evident that Arsenal do things the right way. The Gunners would never sign a player who the manager had no intention of using, but apparently that’s not how Chelsea work.
Arsenal have completed their own signing this month, and Mohamed Elneny could make his debut against Chelsea in Sunday’s game. The visitors are reportedly close to completing a deal for Brazilian striker Alexandre Pato, but he will have to be registered by noon on Friday to be eligible for the game and isn’t really fit to feature anyway.