Longest serving player leaves on loan

It's the kind of image that is as close to confirmation as it gets: Johan Djourou arriving at the Langenhagen international airport outside Hannover, Germany. By the looks of it looking for a placard with his name on it next to the Hannover 96 logo.

German tabloid Bild prints it with a simple headline: "Djourou ist da!" or "Djourou is there!", opening the article with a welcome to Hannover 96 message.

The details will be confirmed in due time, but today the Swiss international travels with his new team to Portugal and a winter break training camp. The club confirms that through the German news wires.

The deal is said to be a six-month loan, but may well end up as a permanent move. Especially if Djourou can shore up a leaky defence which has shipped 31 goals in the first half of the Bundesliga season.

Johan Djourou has been at Arsenal since August 2003, which makes him the longest serving player in the current first team squad. He has never been a first choice in central defence in these nine and a half years, but has still played 144 games in all competitions and scored one goal.

Meanwhile, Marouane Chamakh's loan move to West Ham has already been confirmed. The Moroccan striker has become a fringe player during the last calendar year. His quotes on West Ham's official website shows that he means business and has something to prove.

"I think this will be a very important move for me and I don't want to waste any more time. I want to contribute immediately. I didn't have opportunities to play recently, but I did well before and I know I am a very good striker. We played only one striker at Arsenal, so I didn't play a lot, so I hope to do so more with West Ham."

At 28, he can't be blamed for wanting more game time.

[Added:] Djourou's loan move to Hannover has now been confirmed by arsenal.com.

It's almost unprecedented that the official club website confirms anything that isn't 100 percent completed in every shape or form. In the last few seasons, arsenal.com has been the very last website with Arsenal news, contrary to what you'd expect.

May this be the start of a new editorial policy in the new year - actually delivering news when they happen, and not after they have been rubber stamped by UEFA and the FA.