Friday, November 21, 2008

Gallas needs a ball gag


While the daily entertainment quotient would undoubtedly go down, it's about time for William Gallas to shut his mouth. He already caused enough of a stir with his stories from inside the Arsenal locker room to reportedly be dropped from the squad and lose the armband. That's not enough for Mr. Gallas, however. Now he's aiming to get dropped from the French squad as well.

Earlier today, in what looks to have been leaked from an upcoming autobiography, news filtered out that Gallas has feuds in the France locker room as well. This time it's not over heart or anything like that, it's over respect. Not towards the refs, but from young players to the veterans.

The player whom Gallas had the big problem with is not named explicitly, but there are a couple of clues. First of all, the player is code-named "S". Secondly, the player's age at Euro 2008 was 20. This has led to speculation that the unnamed player is Samir Nasri, a guy who Gallas just can't get away from, either with club or country.

Nasri's (if it is him) crime? He took Thierry Henry's seat on the bus. I tell you what, that is a heinous bit of disrespect, and worthy of losing the respect of all your teams' fans for bringing it up.

The Eurosport article goes a bit further into what Gallas thinks of the new generation of footballers. Given his take on the current crop of teens and young twenty year-olds he's around, I have to say that he's gotta go. Arsenal are obviously dedicated to youth right now, and having a captain who has nothing but contempt for everyone else on the team (save Silvestre) is not going to work out.

Then the question becomes: who takes over the captaincy? It would seem that Wenger has a predilection for Frenchmen and , predictably, he has a lot of choice on the team. Diaby, Sagna, Nasri, Silvestre and Clichy all fit the bill. As well as someone named Francis Coquelin, who has not debuted in the first team yet. Or will it filter down to Almunia? Ol' Bleachy is the vice captain (so Wikipedia tells me) and may have to assume the armband full time until he gets dropped as well.

10 comments:

Spectator said...

I only wish that Gallas were the sole problem with the squad. Ugh, Arsenal are pretty terrible at the moment. I'd much prefer that they were untalented and overachieving rather than underachieving and dysfunctional.

Autoglass said...

Arsenal, France and William Gallas all in one negative story?

Schadenfreude.

The NY Kid said...

What, no "L'enfant terrible" tag?

Jacob said...

Happy now?

The NY Kid said...

Well, not really, since a Frenchman is killing Arsenal in the locker room.

But I am excited about the tag.

Precious Roy said...

Has to go to Cesc. Has to... His time to take control of the team. Also probably keeps him in North London for a couple of more years.

hockalees said...

I agree that Cesc is the logical choice. He is perhaps a bit too mercurial, but it might help to keep him here over the summer (although I fear it may be too late to keep him).

I thought it was wrong to make Gallas captain over Gilberto in the first place. He needs to go.

Adam said...

Its gotta be Cesc, otherwise hes pretty much gone this summer. I thought it should have gone to Cesc at the start of the season, since Gallas seemed like he lost it after the Birmingham game last season.

get Gallas out of there this January, I don't know who the hell would want to buy him, but someone hopefully will. I'm comfortable with Toure and Silvestre in the center of defense, much more than I am with Gallas and anyone back there.

The NY Kid said...

well, it certainly won't be Cesc this weekend.

Adam said...

Thats true, I forgot about that. My guess is Almunia gets it this weekend, thats the easy out for now, then Wenger can think about who should get it.