Post Chelsea, the fallout is swift to reach the ever-eager ears of the media and to feed their overactive imaginations. And William Gallas was always going to be their chief target. Vilified for his reaction after the award of the last minute penalty as St Andrews, he is now friendless and seemingly on the verge of being stripped of the captaincy.

As is always the case, The Mail kicked it all off by reporting that Gallas had said,

Mates? Well, they are more like acquaintances

This to highlight ‘the remarkable claim that he has no true friends within Arsene Wenger’s squad’. Actually, there is nothing in the slightest bit remarkable in the claims and merely highlights the fact that a football club is no different from any other workplace. During the twenty-odd years I have worked in various places, I would say exactly the same sort of thing; a few true friends but on the whole, I have worked with people that I share a common goal with and am happy to socialise with at the time.

Still it would not segue nicely into the follow up to that about Billy has ‘lost’ the dressing room,

One Arsenal star’s representative said: “William has not behaved the way a captain should and has lost respect among some of the players. He went round all of them in front of the cameras before the Chelsea game trying to gee them up but some think it was a bit phoney

Maybe someone ought to tell them that Tony Adams no longer plays for the club nor is he a ‘player’s representative’. He has friends at the club within the coaching staff and no doubt was genuinely curious about the motivation, as we all are.

It was an interesting comment though particularly given his interest in the science and psychology of football. Geeing up players before a big game is nothing new; Adams did it plenty of times before Arsenal matches. Adams tended to do it ‘mano a mano’ and walk around shaking a clenched fist. Gallas chose to call everyone together and there was an element of stage management for the media, to show a united squad.

Gallas was not everyone’s first choice as Captain but until the Birmingham game, few could question the fact that he was successful in carrying out the role. However, his reaction brought that into question, giving the media the opportunity to invent a slant on the recent events that quite possibly does not exist.

To blame him for the subsequent lapses in concentration on their own are to deflect attention from elsewhere. For example, the culpability for Aliadiere’s goal was shared equally by Gallas and Toure; on Sunday, Belletti’s free kick should have been blocked by someone standing in front of the ball but Eboue’s booking in the first half made the player’s more conscious of being caught blocking the ball. The point is that rather than creating a scapegoat in one player, it has been a collective lapse in defensive concentration that has cost the team dear in recent weeks.

Arsene meanwhile is adamant (or whichever dandy highwayman you want him to be) that the focus will not be switching from the Premier to Champions Leagues’,

We want to do well in the Premier League and not dream about the Champions League. We have to fight back. It is five games now since we have won and we want to come back to winning ways

Not to put too fine a point on it, he is going to have his work cut out on that score, particularly if Liverpool are vanquished comfortably in the first leg.

Moving on from that even, Arsene is reported to have said on French TV that he wants Hatem Ben Arfa from Lyon with a fee of £15m being quoted which begs two questions; firstly would he pay that sort of money when he apparently has his quota of disruptive Frenchmen already and secondly, how loose is the translation into English. This morning’s Sun reckons that the lucky recipient of Arsene’s fluttering eyelashes is Zdravko Kuzmanovic for a fee of £5m which is much more in keeping with his spending patterns and will only take about twenty shirt sales with lettering on them to recoup his fee.

Gilberto wants to prove that he is still worth a place in the Arsenal squad. Whilst it might not be a universally popular decision and the sentiment is not in keeping with other recent comments, the experience that he has would be useful to the squad being one of the few who has actually been at the business end of winning trophies. However, were he to get a new deal unless injuries strike, it is hard to see him playing in the first team other than in the Carling Cup which to me at least, seems to be a sad way for his career to finish.

On which note, I’ll finish. ’til Tomorrow.

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