Wenger must heed the warning in Gallas rant
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Spot the difference between the following three statements. 1: "There are a lot of cover-ups sometimes and players need to stand up and be counted. When players don't do it in training it's bloody frustrating. We're going to find it hard to win the league and if we end up with no trophies there's something wrong."
2: "One or two of the younger players have slackened off in training. I have mentioned it to the players concerned but sometimes it goes in one ear and out of the other, so you have to do it in a more public way. They think they have done it all when they have done nothing."
3: "There are things that can't be said and can't be tolerated. We are not brave enough in battle. I think we need to be soldiers. We have to be warriors."
The first two come from a passionate skipper, a man railing against those who are not meeting his standards.
The third is from a petulant captain, undermining his team's hopes for the future. They were enough for him to lose the captaincy and probably signal the end of his time at the club.
For Roy Keane, raging against the apathy of the next generation in 2002 and 2004 added another layer to his mystique, but when William Gallas did the same last week, his was an act of gross disloyalty.
Had Gallas really wanted to emphasise the point, he should have asked each of his team-mates to bring their winner's medals to training.
There would have been a few FA Cup medals from 2005, one Bundesliga medal from Tomas Rosicky and Robin van Persie's 2002 UEFA Cup medal. Kolo Toure and Gael Clichy could have arrived with their one Premier League medal apiece, which would have weighed up against Gallas's two and a League Cup. Not much to show for a squad that seems to think of itself among the best in Europe but has yet to go about proving it.
Many in such a talented squad would look down their noses at the technical ability of Mikael Silvestre, but his four Premier League medals, one FA Cup and one Champions League tally just about eclipse that of the entire squad. Medals look far better than press cuttings with headlines about potential.
Unlike most of the squad, Gallas did not learn his football philosophies under Arsene Wenger and so can cast a clinical eye on their frailties with the experience he brings from other clubs.
Early in his time at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho threatened to substitute Joe Cole if he continued to perform his tricks without any end product. Such an action goes against the grain of the game's aesthetics but helped to turn Cole from a show-pony into an effective player -- and this is the environment in which Gallas flourished.
At Arsenal, Gallas has become like a babysitter trying to convince a doting parent that their children are misbehaving. The babysitter's comments might be taken on board but the parent will convince themselves that they know best. And nothing changes, except the babysitter.
Over the course of the last few years, Wenger has decided to trust his young players almost exclusively and rid the club of its strong characters. Gilberto, Sol Campbell, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Jens Lehmann were all deemed, with certain justification, to be past their best-by date, but while their on-field talent has been replaced, their strong personalities haven't.
The problem with moulding a team in one's own image is that they take on the flaws of one's character too. Wenger is rightly lauded for the contribution he has made to English football, but when things go awry there are few who take defeat with such petulance.
In the same manner, his players are hailed for beating Manchester United or sauntering through the early rounds of the Carling Cup with their youth team, but when they were losing at Man City, Stoke or Fulham, or at home to Hull or Aston Villa, the stars who believe their own hype were nowhere to be found. The most passionate reaction was van Persie's idiotic charge at Villa's Thomas Sorenson, for which he was sent off.
This was the nub of Gallas's argument. Like Keane, Gallas has done things on the pitch which can forever be used as a stick with which to beat him. His actions when the team drew at Birmingham last season were indisputably wrong, but they shouldn't frame every interview he gives or mistake he makes on the pitch for the rest of his career.
Infamous
Until his infamous MUTV critique, it was always felt that when Keane spoke out he was doing so because Alex Ferguson couldn't be seen to criticise his players publicly. Most of the time, Keane had a point and the players responded accordingly because the manager rammed home the message.
Wenger felt backed into a corner by Gallas's comments and acted accordingly but, unless some heed is taken of the reasons behind his frustration, it will further emasculate a club whose reputation for being soft is hardening.
With Gallas thoroughly undermined, the club's young players now know they are the ones who call the shots. On Saturday they had a chance to ram Gallas's words down his throat against Manchester City, instead they were pathetic with the sort of display which could easily prove Gallas's point for him.
- Aidan O'Hara
