It may be time for a change at the top

I am not the greatest fan of the media – they tend to over-exaggerate anything that happens in the game, whether it be good or bad. When the reaction to William Gallas’ behaviour at the end of that horrible day back in February was totally over the top in berating him and telling the world that it was not the behaviour of a captain, I disagreed.

The media love to make a meal of these things and, as far as I was concerned, it was an understandable reaction to seeing one of his team mates have his leg brutally snapped in half by a dreadful assault by Martin Taylor.

Since then, my respect for Gallas has gradually ebbed away as he displayed a distinct lack of captaincy in a side which badly needed some leadership. I’ve never really had that many complaints about his ability as a player but at times he has looked uninterested in encouraging his team and trying to pick players up when they are down.

When he made his comments on Thursday, it seems that both Arsene Wenger and I reached breaking point with him at the same time. All credit to Arsene Wenger for getting rid of Gallas (if indeed he has captained the side for the last time) – in my opinion, we will never achieve anything with such an unprofessional man in charge of affairs on the pitch.

However, there the plaudits for Wenger end for me.

Today was one of the most predictably awful performances I have ever heard and, in the absence of a captain on the day, it was down to Wenger to inspire the team to win a tough game at Manchester City. He did nothing of the sort. We hardly managed a shot on goal, much like last week’s pathetic effort and the overall performance sounded very similar to the Villa game.

I have a horrible feeling that this might be the beginning of the end for Wenger. The choice of William Gallas as captain may turn out to indicate that, after many years of superb management of Arsenal Football Club he has lost touch with the modern game and has not got what it takes to build a side which can challenge in the Premier League any more.

When George Graham was sacked by the club in ’95, it was ostensibly because of the ‘bung’ scandal that had blighted him in the previous months – but, once the dust had settled, it became clear that he had had his time at the top and could no longer cut it at that level. No-one thought it at the time but, despite the dreadful 2 or 3 years that followed, it was the best decision the club could have made to let him go.

I am still not 100% convinced that Arsene Wenger is in the same position but the problem is, the side he has created over the last 4 years or so is a long way short of the quality and dominance required to win trophies in this country at the moment and Arsene shows little or no sign of managing to turn things around at the moment.

In the short term, we simply have to win on Tuesday night and qualify for the knockout stage of the Champions League. Whatever needs to be done to do that has got to be done – even if that means reinstating the petulant idiot Gallas. After that and the Chelsea game next week, who knows?

I just hope that William Gallas doesn’t turn out to be Arsene Wenger’s Chris Kiwomya.