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1 days and 15 hours ago
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width="1" height="1" //divpstrong/strongstrong/pp/strongWilliam Gallas' hold on the Arsenal
captaincy appeared to be over this evening and his very future at the club in jeopardy after he did
not travel with the rest of the squad to the north-west for today's Premier League fixture against
Manchester City./ppThe controversial Frenchman had followed his attack on an unnamed team-mate on
Wednesday — that player is known to be Robin van Persie —
with further outspoken comments about another of them yesterday./ppOnce again he did not name the
player, identifying him only as "S" and saying that he played in midfield, but it is understood
that he was referring to Samir Nasri, his France team-mate who joined Arsenal from Marseille in the
summer. In his newly released autobiography, he criticised him for his "insolence"./ppArsène
Wenger, the manager, was deeply concerned by Gallas' comments and had given serious thought to
stripping him of the captaincy. He informed Gallas of his intention and the explosive result was
that Gallas stayed behind in London as his team headed to Manchester./ppOn Wednesday, Gallas had
spoken of the dressing-room being disrupted by one player who "insults us", an attack on Van
Persie, while he also said that his young Arsenal team-mates were "not brave enough in battle",
that there had been a row at half-time during the recent 4-4 home draw with Tottenham Hotspur and
that the reason he was speaking out was because "there are things that can't be said and can't be
tolerated"./ppWenger has defended his outspoken and emotional captain, whose methods have been
under scrutiny since his bizarre sit-in protest at Birmingham City last February. Yet he has been
pushed too far by Gallas and acted for the sake of dressing-room unity. He will be without one
alternative captain at Eastlands as Cesc Fábregas is suspended and most likely another
— Kolo Touré is described as a "major doubt" after he injured his calf
in midweek. The goalkeeper Manuel Almunia is expected to wear the armband./ppWenger will publicly
address the subject of Gallas after the game and in the meantime, he simply wants his players to
pull together and do their talking on the pitch. Despite four Premier League defeats already this
season, he believes that they have the mental strength and ability to rouse themselves./ppGallas
was the victim of unfortunate timing as much as anything else with his latest comments from his
book, which was released yesterday. His row with Nasri took place in the heat of the moment during
France's failed Euro 2008 campaign and the pair promptly made their peace. What Gallas said to his
biographer some months ago about the flashpoint, however, is insightful about his problems with the
new generation of young players./ppHe said they "seem cheeky — they think they
know everything but they know nothing". He added: "I too was 20 years old once. I would never have
allowed myself to speak in such a way to a player older than me. We respected the veterans. We shut
our mouths."/ppGallas said that he was stunned when the young player he argued with took Thierry
Henry's seat on the France team bus. He described the young player as "insolent" and said that he
finally moved. Gallas had scolded the player in training for not calling out when he passed the
ball, and he gave a blow-by-blow description of the heated conversation that followed./pp"Are you
speaking to me? Who do you take yourself for? You're only 20 ... I am not your friend," Gallas
said./pp"I'm not your friend either," the player responded. "Straight away, I see red," added the
31-year-old./ppGallas' passionate nature has been held up as a strength but the generation gap
between him and Arsenal's young tyros has contributed to his fall from grace./ppArsenal, meanwhile,
will pursue the Football Association for compensation over the shoulder injury Theo Walcott
sustained while on England duty this week, which will rule him out for at least three
months./ppstrong/strong/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/arsenal"Arsenal/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/france"France/a/lilia
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