Fabregas to captain Gunners

12 April 2012

William Gallas will return to the Arsenal squad for Tuesday's Champions League clash with Dynamo Kiev at Emirates Stadium, but has been replaced captain by Cesc Fabregas.

The controversial defender was axed from the trip to Manchester City on Saturday, which Arsene Wenger's men lost 3-0 as their Barclays Premier League title hopes were dealt another blow, after publicly making critical remarks about the team and questioning their fighting spirit.

Although the Arsenal manager refused to discuss the reasons behind the player's absence, Wenger confirmed Gallas would be reinstated, but not in a leadership role, saying: "William will play against Kiev, but the captain of the team will be Fabregas."

He continued: "I do not think I have to especially explain why I make the decisions, but it is a permanent thing."

Wenger felt it had been an "interesting" few days for Arsenal, whose season is threatening to unravel.

He said: "When you do not win, nobody jumps off the roof, but the frustration does kick in.

"It is a good opportunity now for us to show we have strength and ability - you know how it works, you go from fantastic to a catastrophe, but real life is somewhere in between."

Wenger insisted: "So even if we are at the moment frustrated, it is not all doom and gloom. We have a strong belief in our ability and we have a good opportunity to show we care about the club and that we can qualify."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in