After Thomas Vermaelen was sold off in the summer after being a non-playing Arsenal Captain last season, Mikel Arteta was the newly appointed Top Dog in the changing room. Since the Spaniard succumbed to injury poor old Per Mertesacker took up the slack as designated vice-captain, but his performances since then have left much to be desired.
Yesterday Arsene Wenger dropped the Big German and played the new-boy Gabriel instead alongside Laurent Koscielny. The Boss was pleased with the Brazilian’s peformance and said after the game: “He had an encouraging performance overall.
“He was surprised by the intensity of the challenges once or twice but he made a great tackle against Romelu Lukaku in the first half.
“He’s highly focused, has a good concentration level and is quick.”
Now the latest Arsenal rumours are saying that Mertesacker will be allowed to leave in the summer with Gabriel being promoted to the starting XI on a regular basis.
There are few Arsenal fans that would disagree with that idea right now, especially after Mertesacker’s famous ‘ducking incident’. I am sure that they amount of work that Wenger’s scouts did in the run up to buying Gabriel in January they must have identified many other possible centre-back targets that could replace our ageing BFG.
Could we see yet another one of our players fall to the usual Arsenal Captain’s curse?