Unai Emery has today confirmed after 8 weeks of the season, that we finally have a club captain. He has named five of the least bad players we have as captains, with Granit Xhaka being named as the official club captain even while he’s suspended for 40 per cent of the season.
David Ornstein beat ‘poor man’s David Ornstein’; John Cross to the punch as he announced this morning, before John Cross, that Granit Xhaka has been chosen by Emery as the club captain. Xhaka will wear the armband until the end of the season despite his poor start to this campaign, failing to win over many Arsenal fans so far.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will be Emery’s vice-captain and the rest of the vice-vice captains are Hector Bellerin, Alexandre Lacazette and last and probably the most surprisingly least, Mesut Ozil. Ozil has been left on the bench for much of this season and it is a huge surprise that Emery has chosen him as part of the leadership gang of five.
Gone are the days of proper captains like Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira and Cesc Fabregas, to name but two, and now it is more of a sideline/hobby for the captain than an actual job/honour to represent the greatest club in the world.
Let’s be honest, Koscielny, Ramsey and Cech and many others recently have all failed at the job, so let us hope Xhaka can rise to the occasion and hope this is the that this extra responsibility is what he’s been missing to try and fix up his wayward performances and constant bad slash rash decisions on the pitch.
Unai Emery said:
“In the dressing room the players voted for him as first leader. Sometimes he makes mistakes, the most important thing is to learn and correct that…”
Emery also, confusingly admitted he’s waited until Elneny and Mkhitaryan left to conduct the vote as he didn’t want them involved – wait, what now…?