PROFILE | Alexander Djiku: Strasbourg’s key defender could be one of next summer’s best free transfers | OneFootball

This profile is taken from the 2022 GFFN 100, Get Football’s leading publication to be released at the end of the month, counting down French football’s 100 best players in 2022.

Ghanaian centre-back Alexander Djiku is the key man in the heart of Strasbourg’s defence, which, admittedly, has looked rather shaky in the opening stages of the 2022/23 Ligue 1 season. The 28-year-old recently experienced his first World Cup with the Black Stars in Qatar, where Ghana fought hard but were ultimately knocked out in the group stages.

Djiku spent his youth career at Corsican club Bastia, where he played as a central defender, but being versatile and quick, he often operated as a full-back. He made his Ligue 1 debut aged 20 in 2014. With Bastia facing relegation amid financial troubles at the end of the 2016/17 season, he joined Caen for a fee of €2m. After two seasons with Caen, though, the strength of his performances brought links with Marseille, Lyon and Sevilla, but it was Strasbourg who secured his services in the summer of 2019 for a reported fee of €4.5m.

Djiku is a complete defender. Despite not being the tallest centre-back at 182cm, he is good in the air, a no-nonsense tackler, he reads the game well and is always alert to danger. He is also good on the ball, an important skill for any modern centre-back. According to his former coach at Caen, Patrice Garande, Djiku also displays immense leadership qualities. His 4.7 progressive passes per 90 minutes ranks him in the top 2% of centre-backs in Europe’s top five leagues.

In coach Julien Stéphan’s Strasbourg set-up, Djiku regularly operates as a right-sided centre-back in a three-man defence, alongside two of Gerzino Nyamsi, Lucas Perrin and Maxime Le Marchand, though he has occasionally featured as the left-sided centre-back in a four-man setup, alongside the more one-footed Nyamsi, to mixed success.

In the summer of 2022, having just missed out on European football, it seemed almost certain that Djiku would be departing Alsace for Hoffenheim in a deal reportedly worth around €6m. However, the deal broke down due to issues surrounding agent commissions. This means that Strasbourg face losing their Ghanaian international for free next summer, with the player having just seven months left on his current deal, and, so far, refusing to sign a new one.