Gallas reveals depths of our problems

Well what has Billy gone and done now? The Telegraph has a good piece here setting out exactly what he said, apparently, whilst on duty with France this week, although its also widely reported that he has a book on the way as well. So believe what you will.

Either way, the private life of the Arsenal dressing room is now public knowledge, and it ain't pretty. However, for the most part, I completely agreed with what Gallas said:

“Maybe, against Manchester [United], it was the whole team that fought for victory. But when you stop fighting together, there comes a time when the midfield will sink, the defenders, unfortunately, can also sink. That’s what happened against Villa.”

"We are coming up against teams who are not scared to play football against us, who are not scared to take us on at our place, and this is becoming dangerous. We are not brave enough in battle. I think we need to be soldiers. We have to be warriors."

Good stuff Billy. Well said. Exactly what I want to hear from the Arsenal captain. But then he goes a bit wrong:

"When, as captain, some players come up to you and talk to you about a player ... complaining about him ... and then during the match you speak to this player and the player in question insults us, there comes a time where we can no longer comprehend how this can happen. I am trying to defend myself a bit without giving names. Otherwise I’m taking it all [the blame]. It’s very frustrating. I’m 31, the player is six years younger than me.”

So someone who is 25 years old had a go at Billy G during a game and poor little Billy-kins is not happy about it. Big fucking deal.

Early reports have suggested that the only player at Arsenal who is 25 is RVP, but that is not correct, as both Bacary Sagna and Manu Eboue were 25 this year as well. It is also not beyond the realms of possibility that maths is not Billy's strong point and that he was referring to the 26 year old Adebayor, or even the 27 year old Kolo Toure. Frankly though, it wouldn't surprise me if all of them thought Billy was a twat.

Remember ladies and gentleman, that William Gallas is the man who threatened to go on strike at Chelsea because he would not tow the line with Mourinho.

It is incredibly childish of Billy Gallas to go into these issues in the first place. Billy G was not even involved in the quarrel, but he tried to stop it and was told, presumably, to mind his own business in no uncertain terms by a 25/26/27 year old who was involved in the argument. Its simply not newsworthy, but Billy wants to be "insulted" by what happened.

Now if Gallas was any kind of captain, then if he felt that he had been disrespected, he would have a quiet word with the individual in question and sorted it out man-to-man. If appropriate, I would expect Gallas to have involved the other senior players, or even the manager.

I expect that if Ian Wright ever told Tony Adams to fuck-off, which he must have done at some points, then big Tone would have done the right thing. Perhaps let Wrighty cool off first and have a chat after the game. Or punch Wrighty in the face and tell him who is daddy is. Maybe Wrighty never would have sworn at Tone in the first place. Either way, Tone was the boss. Gallas is not.

When you add this latest disaster to the catalogue of other recent team incidents, including the Adebayor/Bendtner bust up last year, Song disrespecting Toure in the Stoke game, and reports of pre-season fights between Walcott and Song on the training ground, the picture is extremely bleak. In fact, its no chuffing surprise that we are so inconsistent as it seems most of the first team squad are ready have a hissy-fit at any given opportunity.

What is worse than all of this, is that I have always thought Wenger was an excellent man-manager, a genius at motivating his teams and engendering die-hard loayalty from his players. The appointment of Gallas as captain is now one of Wenger's biggest mistakes. When added to the long list of high profile departures from the first team squad in the last 12 months (Diarra, Flamini, Hleb, Senderos and Gilberto), I begin to think that we are in a real mess off the field as well.