Over the last few years there has been much talk of the curse of being Arsenal’s captain, and it certainly is a fact that once appointed they play brilliantly and are sold the following year (Like Fab4 and RVP), or get injured (like Thomas Vermaelen and Mikel Arteta) and don’t hardly ever appear on the pitch.
Well now Arteta has hardly played 10 games in one and a half seasons, and his latest effort was excruciatingly painful to watch and of course he had to go off with another injury. According to Wenger the little Spaniard has now recovered and is ready to play, but even with Coquelin out injured it would seem that Flamini and Chambers are in front of the captain in the pecking order, and when Elneny arrives Arteta will be out of the picture altogether.
So is it possible that Arteta will now be ready to move on in search of first team football? Because according to the latest Arsenal rumours, the West Ham manager Slaven Bilic is keen to take him across London to Upton Park, to try and help the Hammers to gain European football next season.
That’s a very brave assumption considering the amount of football Arteta has played in the last year, but I guess stranger things have happened. One of the pluses for a certain faction of Arsenal fans is that Per Mertesacker will immediately be bumped up to official captain, which will obviously mean his departure in the near future as well! (That was a joke by the way….)