William Gallas is still upset after being
stripped of the Arsenal captaincy by Arsene Wenger
William Gallas wants to leave Arsenal. The France
defender has become disillusioned with life at the Emirates Stadium
since he was stripped of the captaincy last month for criticising
his team-mates. He was dropped from the squad for the 3-0 defeat
away to Manchester City on November 22 and replaced as captain by
Cesc Fàbregas two days later. Although he put a brave face on the
demotion, he is still angry about the way that he has been
treated.
Juventus, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain are prepared to offer
the 31-year-old defender an escape route out of London, but none of
them can afford to match his Arsenal wages of £90,000 a week.
Gallas believes that he was humiliated by Arsène Wenger and that
the manager overreacted by stripping him of the captaincy and
fining him two weeks’ wages for comments he made in an interview to
publicise the publication of his autobiography in France.
Gallas has few friends in the Arsenal dressing-room and has
become increasingly isolated since Thierry Henry was allowed to
join Barcelona in June last year. Henry was his closest friend at
the club and since the France forward moved to Spain, Gallas has
fallen out with team-mates such as Fàbregas, Robin van Persie, Theo
Walcott and Samir Nasri.
The distance between Gallas and the rest of the squad was
highlighted during the warm-up before the 1-1 draw away to
Middlesbrough on Saturday, when the defender ignored instructions
from Pat Rice, the assistant manager, to join the other players in
a huddle.
Gallas’s relationship with Wenger has also become strained and
the manager admitted this week that taking the captaincy away from
Gallas was the hardest thing he has had to do during his managerial
career.
If Gallas does leave the Emirates Stadium next month he will
miss out on the chance of playing with Eduardo da Silva again. The
Croatia striker played for the first time in ten months on Tuesday,
for the first half of the reserve-team’s 2-0 victory over the
Portsmouth reserve side, and he is confident that he will be ready
for first-team action in two weeks despite a slight hamstring
strain. “I just want to play like I did before,” Eduardo said.
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