Promising French footballers brought up in African immigrant communities amid decidely not-touristy Paris suburbs who travel a well trodden route through Le Havre’s renowned youth system rarely slip under Arsène Wenger’s radar.
If it ranks as a minor shock that Jonathan Téhoué began featuring on the Arsenal manager’s usually reliable talent ID system only after he scored the late equaliser which earned Leyton Orient an FA Cup fifth-round replay at The Emirates, other details of the striker’s history merely exacerbate such surprise.
Quite apart from once plying his trade in Turkey’s top flight with Konyaspor, the peripatetic Téhouée was once very nearly signed by Lee Clark, the young Huddersfield manager rather admired by Wenger.
Even more remarkably, the striker, whose parents originate from Ivory Coast, is friendly with three Arsenal players; Emmanuel Eboué, Abou Diaby and Alex Song. As youngsters he and Song played together for Bastia but, blind to this shared past, Arsenal’s manager admitted: “I’d never heard of Téhoué.”
Now 26, Leyton Orient’s last gasp assassin – eight of his 10 goals this season have arrived after the 85th minute – made a circuitous onward journey from Corsica to East London. After stints with a couple of Belgian clubs he headed east, first to Nicosia’s Apoel and then Istanbul’s Kassimpassor.
Téhoué was experiencing a version of what in earlier centuries young aristocrats termed “Grand Tours” of Europe. His own odyssey certainly took a cultural turn when he stopped off at Konyaspor. The club is situated in Konya, Turkey’s most religious city and home of the mystic Sufi sect of Islam with its famous Whirling Dervishes.
A renowned centre of Muslim art, not to mention the Turkish carpet trade, Konya sits amid an often bleak Steppe landscape and Téhoué’s ultimate desperation to leave saw him escape to Huddersfield as a triallist.
If Konyaspor’s retention of his registration represented an ultimately contract-foiling complication, Clark liked what he saw. “Jonathan is strong and a bit different, he’s competitive with a good touch,” said Huddersfield’s manager. “He’s got a good change of pace and when he gets the chance to shoot he hits the target on a regular basis with quite a powerful shot.”
A year later, following several months spent kicking his heels in Paris while Fifa helped resolve the dispute with Konyaspor, he was back in England, this time at Brisbane Road, where Orient’s then manager, Geraint Williams, extended a lifeline.
“Leyton Orient gave me the chance to play football again,” says Téhoué. “I know Orient is not a big club but at the moment it is what I want. Right now I don’t need something more. I’m still young so the next few years will show if I can play at a higher level or not.”
With Russell Slade’s inspired management having prompted a League One play- off challenge, a striker who missed much of the early part of the season due to a serious hamstring tear and is still battling on-going weight and fitness issues knows he could be in far worse places.
He also appreciates that the hitherto elusive fame that his stunning goal against Arsenal is currently affording him will most probably be transitory. “I don’t pay attention to the attention,” he says. “I’m just doing my job and trying to enjoy my football. I know that, if we are eliminated in the replay, all of this is going to end.”
Slade, who is in the habit of keeping the Frenchman’s pace and power on the bench until the closing stages of games, suspects the glory days might endure were Téhoué only to get himself into better shape.
“Forget about David Fairclough [once of Liverpool],” said Orient’s manager. “Téhoué is the super-sub, he’s our secret weapon. But when Jonathan has started he has not always made the desired impact. Fitness is an issue. Jonathan is sometimes not as fit as we would expect; he can be a little unpredictable in that way.”
Téhoué acknowledges a problem. “I’m still overweight by four or five kilos, let’s say four,” he agrees. “When the season started I was out for four months with my hamstring and I’m struggling to get my fitness back.
“I want to start games, it’s not nice being on the bench all the time. But, even if I’m not happy with the manager’s decisions, I must stay professional. I have to show him what I can bring to the team and do my job the best way I can.”
If his interpretation of “professionalism” does not quite synchronise with Slade’s, at least Téhoué’s ruthlessly Solskjaer-esque execution of a substitute striker’s duty has finally been sufficient to make Wenger take notice.
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