Mesut Ozil Decision Against Everton Continues To Derail Arsenal

Ray Parlour echoed the sentiments of most Arsenal fans by completely discrediting Unai Emery’s decision to name Mesut Ozil captain in the Everton defeat.

“I think football has moved on from my era obviously with the likes of Tony Adams,” the former Gunners midfielder said.

“I think the last real proper leader was probably John Terry at Chelsea. It was a bit of a surprise Ozil being captain. I’m looking at who else could be captain in this team and that’s what they’re missing.”

When asked if Sokratis Papastathopoulos could embrace the role in Laurent Koscielny’s absence, Parlour added, “In an ideal world you’ll always want a centre-half as skipper. I would. You’ve got to have the right person to carry the armband but you’re looking at the whole pitch [as a centre-half].

“We used to have people like Tony Adams. And Tony, if you weren’t doing your job, he would be going absolutely crazy at you during the game.

“That’s what you need. You need your leaders to say ‘right, you sit in there’. It’s not rocket science.

“If they’re attacking down the left-hand side and getting a lot of joy down the left-hand side, you’ve got to have a player in the team to say ‘right, you just sit right there for 10 minutes and let’s weather the storm and we can get back on the front foot.”