Mikel Arteta could again change captain role at Arsenal

Aubameyang is the captain after Xhaka lost the armband.

But new boss Mikel Arteta could change skipper again.

Mikel Arteta is yet to decide who will be his Arsenal captain but has challenged senior players to step forward and serve as role models. Granit Xhaka was belatedly named Gunners skipper by Unai Emery this season but the midfielder was stripped of the armband after reacting angrily to his substitution during October’s Premier League game against Crystal Palace.

Top scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang succeeded Xhaka in the role, emerging from a much-criticised leadership team of five players, but new head coach Arteta, who was appointed Emery’s successor on Friday, could change the captaincy again.

“I have to get there and get the feeling,” he told reporters. “I don’t want to make a decision because a decision doesn’t have to be made. I want to see what they are doing at the moment and after that, slowly, we will make some decisions to help them.

“I think a lot of external things happened over the past few months that obviously has a knock-on effect on the team, on their relationships and the perception people have on them as a team, how together or not together they are. They have to be so united, that dressing room is untouchable.

“It is important what they are bringing to the table, those senior players, because we need to generate role models and people have to follow those leaders. In Barcelona, I was there and they had two or three leaders and they could educate almost the rest of them and create an environment and create a group that everybody wanted to follow and it’s all about this.

“I think it is part of your nature. You are or you are not. You can tweak the character or the personality of a player or a person a little bit, but you are or you are not [a role model].”

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