Morning all, hope we find you well this Saturday.
While there’s been no official confirmation from the club the fact remains that William Gallas is no longer the captain of the club. He is not in the squad to face Manchester City today which should tell you just how Gallas is viewed at the moment. The squad is down to bare bones but there’s still no place for him.
I think Arsene made the right decision yesterday. Gallas simply had made his career as captain untenable. He might well have done the same with his playing career at the club too. His outburst was extraordinary, plunged the club into the kind of media frenzy it does its utmost to avoid at all times, and the consequences had to be brutal and swift.
What was unclear yesterday was why he gave this interview. What emerged during the morning that the interview took place as part of the publicity to launch Gallas’s autobiography in France. The more cynical amongst you might speculate that some controversial comments would generate some publicity for Gallas and the book. Maybe he didn’t think what he said was that bad (remember, there are points he made that were valid, even in my opinion!) but when a passage from the book revealed a furious bust-up with a player called ‘S’ while on international duty, and that player was revealed to be Samir Nasri, then you really have to question his intelligence.
Why do footballers feel the need to write autobiographies when they’re still playing? Surely the best thing to do is wait until your career is over then you can write about who you want, when you want, and the only problem you might have is at your 25 year Euro2008 reunion dinner. When you start creating problems within the team you’re captain of then it’s grossly stupid. If I were a football manager I would put a clause in players contracts forbidding them from writing biographies while still playing for the club. Otherwise we will continue to swerve off the road at their idiocy.
But the book is secondary. Gallas has never been a convincing captain and the comments made about his teammates were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Again you could be cynical and suggest he made them to put an end to his Arsenal career. It’s not like he doesn’t have previous, his exit from Chelsea was unseemly and undignified and it looks like his Arsenal career is going to end the same way.
There are no hard facts this morning. The Sun says Gallas has been told he is ‘free to leave’ the club. They quote one of those old reliable ‘close family friends’ who said:
“Arsene told him ‘If you don’t want to be in my team then just go. You are free to leave’. William was shocked at the outburst and went straight home. He simply doesn’t know what will happen to him. He’s very down.”
It’s hard to see how he can continue at the club in any way, to be honest. He has betrayed the rest of the players by making public things which happen in the dressing room and that won’t easily be forgotten. But he’s also a French international who is worth some money. It will be interesting to see if the club hold on and try and sell him in January or if some agreement is made which sees his contract cancelled and he leaves as a free agent. Given the circumstances you feel it might be worth taking the financial hit and getting him out of the club as quickly as possible.
What will be most interesting is seeing what kind of comment the club and the manager has to make on the situation. We’ve had a brief snippet (in that Sun article) from the chairman who talks about not making things public but that could have come from any time in the recent past.
I’m sure Arsene will feel betrayed by Gallas. He made him captain, he put more faith in him and backed him more than he probably should have, perhaps feeling that giving Gallas responsibility might change the man, but Gallas was always too old to change. Or not intelligent enough to cope with the pressures of the job. So while I’m glad Arsene has done this now it’s a case of better late than never because this is a decision he could easily have made in the summer. It’s a decision he should have made in the summer.
Now, it feels like a big thing. It feels important, really important. Almost like a weight has been lifted from our shoulders and we can move on. Goodplaya’s point is good, the removal of Gallas does not solve all our problems, not by a long way, but this certainly does feel like a step in the right direction. I felt the position of Gallas as captain made it difficult for Wenger to drop him as a player when he should have been dropped. There is no such problem now.
So it’s up to the rest of the players to show what they’re made of today. I know that some of them did not take to Gallas as captain, and like the rest of us footballers can be petty, spiteful individuals at times. Imagine you have a team leader at work who you actively dislike, you don’t do your best work for them, do you? The same thing goes for footballers which is why the choice of the next captain is absolutely crucial. You know who I think should get it but I’ll write something on that in another blog in the days ahead.
Today it’ll probably be Almunia with the armband as we take on Manchester City. The squad, as I said above, is threadbare and how we line up is going to be interesting. I suspect we’re going to see Sylvester and Song as the centre-halves, Djourou at right back and I think Aaraon Ramsey will come into the midfield. There are doubts about Adebayor apparently so we’ll have to see how we line up but a five man midfield with Ramsey, Denilson, Diaby, Nasri and perhaps van Persie playing off the main striker wouldn’t be a surprise.
It’s almost like a new era for the team now. Soon it will have a new leader, in January I am quite sure it’s going to have new players, but there’s plenty of football to be played between now and then. The lads out there today have to show they’re Arsenal players, they have to show they can perform when backs are against the wall, perhaps they need to prove a point to the former captain, but what’s undeniable is that they need a good result today.
Goodbye Gallas, hello the future. Come on Arsenal!
More tomorrow.
