It is being reported that Granit Xhaka is the leading contender to take over from Laurent Koscielny as the next Arsenal captain.
Koscielny is set to lose the captaincy after refusing to travel with the rest of the squad on the pre-season tour of the USA.
Xhaka has been captain before and is one of the five captains that Unai Emery had last season.
Only Mesut Ozil and Xhaka are left from the original five captains and it makes sense that those two are in the running for the role on a permanent basis.
However, it is difficult to see Emery going with Ozil, he does not trust the German enough and it is very unlikely that he will be a consistent starter next season.
That leaves just Xhaka from that core of five.
Xhaka has a history of being a captain with both Switzerland and his previous club Borussia Monchengladbach and Emery clearly has a liking for the 26-year-old.
Emery has addressed the captaincy issue saying
“We spoke a little about that. Last year we had Laurent, Petr Cech and Aaron Ramsey.
“At the moment Koscielny has a contract with us but we’ll speak with the club and him about if he will continue or not. We have players with the capacity [to be captain], one is Granit, he was a captain in the dressing room.
“We have others like Mesut, Nacho. There are other players who can take this position also. I want between three and five captains in the team.”
We will know soon enough but as stated above, the reports are that Xhaka is the front runner and the most likely to be named the captain for the coming season.
That will not be universally welcomed by the Arsenal fans. Ozil still has his fans as do Sokratis, Leno and Lacazette and in fact, if you were to ask Arsenal fans if the club should even consider selling Xhaka you will be surprised how many say yes.
And that is who will most likely be the captain. Think about that.