How to become Arsenal captain in 5 easy steps

1 - Kick up such a fuss your current team has no choice but to sell you. Then move to a club where a player is kicking up an even bigger fuss so you don't look like as much of a trouble maker.

2 - Have the most average season of your life. Don't tackle, don't challenge for headers, but make sure to applaud the fans at the end because that makes everything ok.

3 - Publicly blame the Arsenal medical staff and physios for the time you spent out injured.

4 - Publicly criticise the players at the club for underperforming when you're as guilty as anyone else, if not more.

5 - Publicly criticise the manager for his transfer policy.

Once you do those 5 simple things you can be made captain like William Gallas just has been. I have to say I'm less than impressed with this decision. Gilberto was a good captain last season and deserved to keep the armband. He's a proper Arsenal player, not a Chelsea moaner like Gallas.

If it wasn't going to Gilberto it should have gone to Kolo. I really can't believe William Gallas, of all people, will have the honour of being Arsenal captain. I can normally see some method in Arsene's madness but this is just the weirdest and wrongest decision he's ever made. The job as captain of Arsenal is an honour that must be earned, what the fuck has Gallas ever done to deserve it?

People might not have liked Henry as a captain, I can't blame them, but at least his appointment, and that of Vieira, came on the back of years of excellent service to Arsenal FC. Gallas has been given the captaincy after a dreadful first year in which he did little to win over Arsenal fans beyond giving supporters a clap at the end of games. It's a shocking decision.

The only shining light on the horizon is that the armband might do to him what it did to Henry and Vieira and he'll fuck off to the continent next summer.