November 24th, 2008 12:53am
GilbertoSilver
Today the players trained at London Colney, and William Gallas was among them. Sky Sports News even ‘understand’ he will be considered for selection in tomorrow’s game against Kiev. I can’t imagine that ‘consideration’ will last particularly long: however shoddy our defence is, bringing Gallas back would render Arsene’s bold decision to punish the former captain somewhat pointless.
I believed the decision to remove Gallas from the team and the captaincy was a watershed moment in this team’s development – a decision that might be detrimental in the short-term but was part of a long-term strategy to put things right. If he is reinstated, that all goes to pot. And what’s more, I don’t think the fans will accept it. It’s cruel, but with the manager being untouchable, a scapegoat is required to obtain a feeling of catharsis. The unloved Gallas is a neccessary sacrifice.
In other news, Nicolas Anelka has taken the proverbial biscuit and covered it with poo instead of chocolate, blaming a meaningless poll for his decision to leave Arsenal. Whatever he achieves with Chelsea (missing penalties in Champions League Finals etc), it won’t make up for the near-decade he spent in footballing backwaters like Bolton as a result of leaving Arsenal.
Anyway. No point worrying about Anelka now. We have serious problems of our own to worry about. I believe Arsene has a press conference today – whether or not he’ll be any more forthcoming than on Saturday remains to be seen, but it’ll be interesting nonetheless.
November 23rd, 2008 04:56am
GilbertoSilver
Manchester City 3 – 0 Arsenal (Ireland 45, Robinho 55, Sturridge (pen) 89)
Highlights here; Wenger’s Reaction here
A picture speaks a thousand words.
I’ve linked to Arsene’s post match reaction, but I can tell you now that there is no point in reading it. It’s an exercise in pure rhetoric from the manager. Our latest catastrophic result is not enough to prompt him to change the habits of a life-time: he will publicly defend his players until the day he retires.
Likewise, Arsene has decided to keep the details of the Gallas situation in-house, refusing to divulge the nature of the defender’s punishment and the future destination of the armband.
This is certain to frustrate fans who want to hear a bit of honesty from the manager. They are aching to know that Arsene is not as myopic as some would suggest. They want to hear him say that he knows he made a mistake with Gallas; that this team is not good enough and urgently require reinforcement; that the fans who travelled to the City of Manchester Stadium deserved better.
I’m going to stick my neck out and say that Arsene knows all of those things. In dropping Gallas and removing the armband, he has acknowledged that he made a poor choice of captain. And as for the quality of the team… well, results speak for themselves. With five defeats in the league this season, we’ve now lost more games than the likes of Hull City and Everton. Publicly slating the team will not help the situation. Arsene knows that he has been a significant part of the creation of a right old mess, but he’s going to clean it up behind closed doors, far from the public eye. If he believes that’s the best way to go about it, so be it. There is plenty we can criticise Arsene for at the moment, but his stance in post-match interviews is not one of them.
As the season goes on, I am increasingly reluctant to discuss the details of games. This is primarily because we are increasingly rubbish. Perhaps foolishly, many fans (including myself) expected an immediate reaction to the catharsis of Gallas’ absence. Sadly, it was not to be.
The result yesterday was extremely poor, but what else could be expected? We were missing some incredibly important players, and were coming off the back not only of the defeat to Aston Villa, but also the mid-week controversy surrounding Gallas. Furthermore, some players had only arrived back from International duty on Friday. Add in the fact that we’re plainly just not very good at the moment, and it was hardly a recipe for success.
None of the above is an attempt to excuse the result, but more to explain it. We were poor from front to back. Whilst the injuries we had going into the game were crippling, we ought to have a squad more capable of coping. And to add insult to injury (no pun intended), the worst culprits yesterday were not players like Gavin Hoyte, or Johan Djourou, who are usually well down the pecking order, but the likes of Denilson and Song: players who are becoming worryingly regular starters.
A common criticism of Arsene is that he is becoming too indulgent of the young players: that he has too much patience with players who are failing to perform at the required level. I would suggest that, paradoxically, Arsene is not showing enough patience with these players.
So obsessed is he with his youth project that he has thrown all the youngsters in at once, without the experienced pros required to groom them into world class players. The likes of Bendtner, Diaby, Denilson, Djourou – hell, maybe even Song, might well one day go on to be good enough to play for Arsenal. But they would be better served by being slowly blooded rather than thrown right into the fire of the Premier League. Denilson started, what, less than half a dozen league games last season? And now he is expected to be good enough to play every single game. On what basis?
The youngsters we have assembled are remarkable. But by playing them all in this unsuccessful, experimental side, we will kill their careers. Yesterday I saw fans calling for all of the youngsters I mentioned in the above paragraph to be sold. Arsene’s policy is resulting in the fans losing patience with players who are years from achieving their potential. Denilson is 19 (or maybe 20, I forget): he should be a bright light in the Carling Cup, someone we are excited about seeing in the first-team in the next two or three years – not someone held accountable for what is ultimately the failure of the manager to sufficiently strengthen the squad.
All of that being said, Denilson, Song, and Diaby reached new levels of insufficiency yesterday. Song in particular was occasionally guilty of just passing the ball out of touch, for seemingly no reason. Perhaps people in the crowd were calling for the ball and it confused him. Only Song himself knows.
It’s not right to pick out individuals: we were utterly insipid all over the park. I spoke yesterday about a leader emerging from adversity, but no player managed that yesterday. Gael Clichy, one of the candidates for the captaincy, made a hash of a clearance leading to City’s first goal, and looked jittery throughout.
Experienced pros like Silvestre and Van Persie were as poor as any youngster. We lacked direction or desire, and our best performers were undoubtedly the travelling fans, who spent the last twenty minutes of the game in raucous song.
The home fans must follow suit. It’s clear that the problems in this side cannot be correct overnight, and enduring support will be required. A piece of major surgery has taken place in removing Gallas, but a full recovery will take time. We must go game-by-game, and collate as many points as we can. We need to stay afloat, and get as far as January, when the cavalry must arrive.
Christmas is usually a time for unwrapping. However, we need to be wrapping up the youngsters in cotton wool and putting them back in the box.
Mark my words, this is a crisis. And in a crisis, you need a few grown-ups around.
November 22nd, 2008 07:36am
GilbertoSilver
So, Gallas is all but gone.  But it didn’t always look as if it would end this way.
After the 2-2 draw against Man Utd in November 2007, I wrote:
“William Gallas put in an outstanding captain’s performance. Not only was he solid at the back, but he found himself way up the field in stoppage time and scored one of the many crucial goals that have littered his career. His “never say die†attitude will be crucial if Arsenal are to win anything this season.”
And it wasn’t just me raving about the new skipper. Kolo Toure claimed at one stage that Gallas would rank alongside Vieira and Adams:
“William gives everything for the Club. Both on and off the pitch, William is a really good captain. He is loud in the dressing room and he has a big heart. Everything he says and does is for the team and the Club. That is the most important quality in a captain. William seems to enjoy the responsibility. He is a really mature player, he has played in a World Cup Final and he is 30. Age and experience really helps as a captain. He leads by example.Â
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When Titi was here, he was outstanding, Patrick was strong and Tony as well. I have played under some fantastic captains and you just follow them. I think he deserves to be mentioned among those names as captain because he is such a strong figure. He has great maturity in a really young team so that’s so important. The young players, when he says something, they really listen to him because they respect him.”
And, of course, there’s Arsene Wenger, who after a Gallas goal helped us defeat Chelsea, said:
“I feel he pops up when you need it, when you want it, and he’s the leader – that’s the best definition of a leader, when you need it you show the example and he did that. I believe as well that Arsenal is a special club where it takes sometimes a few months to be penetrated by the spirit of the Club. I think William this season has taken that completely on board, and he’s completely the leader because he represents how we want to behave.”
In the light of events of the recent days, those words seem laughable. But there’s no point in being revisionist about it: there was a time when the experiment of Gallas’ captaincy looked like it might just pay off.
But that was a very different Arsenal. It was an Arsenal which had leadership in other areas. On the pitch it had the drive and passion of Mathieu Flamini, an inspired Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor, as well as the experience of Jens Lehmann and Gilberto Silva in reserve. Furthermore, and in part as a result of the aforementioned factors, this was an Arsenal side which was winning.
Captaining a successful side is not difficult. It is when things go wrong that a skipper is put to the test. In the face of adversity, true leaders emerge. But infamously at Birmingham, and on countless troublesome occasions since, Gallas has crumbled.
What this young side needed was a veteran who could stand up against and stem the tide of anxiety, harnessing the arrogance of excellence to continue to perform at an elite level when everything was going against the team. We needed someone who the players collectively admired and respected – whose disapproval they feared and appreciation sought in equal measure. It may sound like I’m asking for someone superhuman, but then this is Arsenal Football Club. We are one of the world’s top football teams, and have had some truly inspirational captains throughout our history, particularly of late. Now, at a time when we require that kind of leadership more than ever, Gallas has come up short.
That is not his fault. I don’t doubt that he has done his best as captain. But without wanting to revert to cliché, he is simply not a ‘natural leader’. His recent comments have destabilised the dressing room and presumably left a lot of the players feeling they are unable to trust the man who is supposed to be their figurehead. A fresh approach is neccessary, and removing the armband from Gallas is the first part of that. I’m glad Arsene has finally done what was so patently required: in a similar situation, Alex Ferguson released Roy Keane.  For our manager, it’s been comparatively easy: Gallas is no Roy Keane.
Whether or not Gallas has any kind of future at the club remains to be seen. As far as the captaincy goes, Manuel Almunia is expected to wear the armband today, whilst the trio of Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, and Kolo Toure remain the front-runners to hold the position in the long-term. Toure would be the obvious choice were it not the for the fact that he has been out of the side of late. I don’t expect Arsene to make any decision public until next week at the very earliest, though it will certainly be fascinating to hear his thoughts on the matter in his post-match interview.
The list of first-team players we have missing is quite extraordinary: Senderos and Traore (of course), Gallas (similarly of our own volition), Sagna, Eboue, Toure, Fabregas, Rosicky, Eduardo, and Walcott. On top of that, there are rumours that Emmanuel Adebayor aggravated an ankle problem representing Togo in the week and is not available for selection.
Taking that into consideration, there could well be starts for the likes of Johan Djourou, Alex Song, Gavin Hoyte, and Aaron Ramsey. It’s going to be an incredibly young side whoever plays. However, the axeing of Gallas as skipper does seem to have had a exorcising feel on the club. The flames are definitely doing their best to claim our season, but we must aim to rise, phoenix-like, out of this disarray and re-establish some pride, if nothing else.
I spoke earlier about true leaders emerging in great adversity. Today is a day for someone to stand up and be counted. Let’s hope eleven men in red-and-white do that today.
November 21st, 2008 05:52pm
GilbertoSilver
Following arseblog’s lead, I too have heard this afternoon that William Gallas is no longer the captain of Arsenal Football Club.
The Frenchman is not expected to be involved in tomorrow’s game at Manchester City, where in the absence of Kolo Toure and Cesc Fabregas, Manuel Almunia is likely to wear the armband.
No decision on who will be our permanent captain has yet been taken.
November 21st, 2008 05:37pm
GilbertoSilver
Since the departure of Patrick Vieira, it has been clear that Arsene Wenger does not value the position of Captain particularly highly. Wenger himself substantiated this view as recently as a couple of weeks back:
“I don’t agree anymore when people say you need a leader on the football field. Football has evolved and it is so quick nowadays; there is less time available for one person to lead the team. You need more shared leadership on the pitch.”
However, results do not support Arsene’s philosophy. Think back, for example, to the last trophy Arsenal won – the winning penalty kick was taken by a certain Patrick Vieira. Think back even further, to the Unbeaten season – the final, clinching goal, was scored by a certain Patrick Vieira. The titanic Frenchman was never replaced, either as a midfielder of a skipper, and we are now suffering the consequences.
There are examples of successful sides where the position of captain is not of paramount importance. Take the Manchester United side who were English and European Champions last season. The armband was bounced between Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, and Rio Ferdinand, and I don’t really regard any of those three as ‘natural leaders’. However, United have a totemic tyrant as their figurehead in Alex Ferguson. He, from an off-field position, is the undoubted leader of the side.
Arsene desires the same kind of role. And for a time last season, he had it. When Cesc scored his winning goal in the San Siro, the players ran to celebrate with Arsene: their father-figure, mentor, and commanding officer.
Wenger is not a man who takes kindly to other influential figures impinging upon his control of first-team matters. Anyone who doubts that need only look at his failure to expand the coaching staff or replace David Dein. Perhaps by diluting the role of captain and assembling a squad without any obvious influential leaders, he felt he could build a team in his own image: one with a selfless, group ethos.
However, he had to give the armband to someone. And instead of the fiercely determined Gilberto, or the affable Toure, he chose Gallas. I think that decision will come to be regarded as the worst of Arsene’s time as Arsenal manager. Gallas has been a disgrace to the armband: his self-serving nature typified by the fact that yesterday’s outburst (from which more emerges today) was timed to coincide with the French release of his autobiography.
But Gallas’ failure is only in part his fault. Wenger took a massive gamble on him: let’s not forget this is a player who reportedly threatened to score an own goal if made to play for Chelsea again. Arsene had alternatives and chose Gallas – it is the manager’s responsibility.
With rumours that Gallas has quit as captain flying around, and even some suggestions that the players are voting for his replacement, I am not pacified. This is Arsene’s mess. HE should strip Gallas of the captaincy, HE should choose the replacement. There might not be obvious candidates, but there are certainly superior alternatives to Gallas: Fabregas and Clichy are two that spring to mind.
If the captaincy is changing hands, I doubt we’ll know anything about it until the teams emerge on to the pitch in Manchester tomorrow. If Gallas is first out of the tunnel, I will be very diappointed in the manager.
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