Ramsey shouldn’t wear the captain’s armband by Dan Smith
It was slightly contradicting to see Aaron Ramsey stroll around the Emirates on Saturday as captain giving that reports say it’s our manager’s decision to cancel contract negotiations with the Welshman. I would never question Rambo’s commitment or professionalism but it seems odd for the team to be led by a man who knows he won’t be in North London this time next year.
Unai Emery seems to have an obsessive attention to detail. There’s every chance that his focus was on other issues that he didn’t consider what would happen if he had to take off Cech, something he wouldn’t have imagined having to do. It might also be as simple as the Spaniard not seeing it as a big deal, foreigners often not having the same sentiment regarding the arm band. For example in Italy, the criteria for who should skipper the national side is based on who has the most caps.
It will be interesting to see if Emery feels the need to change his vice captain given that he could be gone as soon as January. Some inside the dressing room might see it as insider joke. Recent history shows being named captain is like a curse.
Arsene Wenger started to use the responsibility as a token gesture to massage the ego of his best players. Fabregas and Van persie were give the honour even when management knew they wanted to leave. Thomas Vermaelen was someone else who departed the same year he got the gig. In that instance we were happy to sell to Barcelona due to a bad injury (one he never truly has recovered from).
The BFG was a bit cheeky, agreeing to be club captain even though he had mentally given up wanting to play. The idea was his peers would benefit from having a World cup winner to learn from. It seems morally wrong he was happy to take a pay check while wishing not to be selected. That meant Koscielny was in charge most match days. He has since been jinxed by an injury so bad there’s doubt if he will come back the same player. His achilles issue was already stopping him from playing 2 matches a week and he may now require his own training schedule to nurse him through.
It’s worth pointing out that Cech is also a free agent next summer, meaning our current captain and vice captain are both seeing out their contracts.
Who should be our captain gooners or is the arm band something we romanticise too much about?
Da Smithn