Why the Arsenal captaincy matters

by David Alexander

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, Frank McLintock was already part of Arsenal folklore.

The man who led the team to the European Fairs Cup and then the Double, he was a gentleman off the pitch and a warrior on it.

Kenny Sansom was the captain as my interest grew and led by example, his excellence as a left-back never in doubt.

But it was the emergence of Tony Adams as captain in 1988, when just 21 years old, that set the stall for a generation of success.

Adams led by example, putting his head where others wouldn’t even put their feet if it meant making a clearance or bundling the ball into the opposition’s goal from a corner.

The fact that he lifted the title in three different decades says it all about his level of consistency, particularly given his own personal issues and the widespread ‘donkey’ abuse he got from fans and the media when he made a mistake.

Adams had been captain for a decade by the time the club lifted their second Double in 1998, in Arsene Wenger’s first full season in charge.

Adams embodied that warrior culture, an attitude that inspired his team-mates, but he also had a softer side, knowing who to bark at and who to put his arm around.

While he marshalled the defence, it was his guidance of Dennis Bergkamp that set the stall for that trophy haul.

Seeing Bergkamp sitting alone on the bus, he told the Dutchman: “You've been here two-and-a-half years, Dennis. Isn't it about time you won something? It would be a shame not to, with your ability.”

That may well have inspired Bergkamp, who had already grown used to Adams and other members of the back four kicking lumps out of him in training to toughen him up for the rigours of English football.

“We kept people like Bergkamp on their toes, we improved them by testing them and if they didn’t test them in training, they might not have got to the level where they’ve got so we were doing them a service,” Adams said.

Lee Dixon said recently that the rare occasions that Adams praised him on the field, calling him “One heck of a full-back” was one of his proudest moments.

Undoubtedly, Adams benefited from his defensive colleagues, Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Steve Bould and Martin Keown, who were all cut from a similar cloth, setting uncompromising high standards that set the tone for everyone else.

Patrick Vieira was a natural successor, leading the team to more trophies and the Invincibles title, but there’s an argument that those who have followed have not been of a similar disposition.

Thierry Henry was a great in his pomp, but perhaps lacked some of the people skills to be a real leader for the varying playing personalities and we have had a succession of captains who have left the club after two or three seasons.

Adams talked about living by a set of principles that set the culture of the club.

It’s no coincidence that Mikel Arteta was captain on the day we broke our trophy drought by winning the FA Cup in 2014 and in his absence, Per Mertesacker did the same a year later.

Granit Xhaka is a Marmite player, loved by some and disliked by others, and while he may well have his limitations on the field, his appointment as captain made sense given his reputation as a leader in the squad.

But his meltdown after being booed off as he sauntered off against Crystal Palace underlined a fragility the likes of Adams and Vieira simply didn’t have.

Culture has been a key tenet of the Arteta managerial reign, so it’s no surprise that he took possibly the biggest gamble of his tenure by dropping club captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ahead of the North London Derby.

Shots of our leading striker sitting, sullen-faced, and then reportedly driving off without taking part in the warm-down after the game, may have been the result of Arteta’s slightly naïve admission that Aubameyang had been dropped.

Whether reports of lateness are true, the Arsenal captain has to set the example which others follow and it comes back to the culture that develops from the top of the club’s playing staff all the way down to the youth teams.

Aubameyang is undoubtedly Arsenal’s biggest star but then again the same could be said of Thierry Henry or Bergkamp when Adams wore the armband.

During the 2-1 victory over Tottenham, Kieran Tierney set the standards by tearing Matt Doherty apart down the left in tandem with Emile Smith Rowe.

It was fascinating watching the player-cam footage Arsenal shared after the game of Tierney barking orders at his team-mates, bombing forward or making tackles for the Arsenal cause.

Much has been made of Tierney’s ‘Braveheart’ attitude, the down-to-earth shopping bag persona made true by his refusal to wear warm training gear in Arctic conditions when shorts and a t-shirt would suffice.

But it’s not just his choice of attire that sets Tierney apart.

He’s clearly cut from the same cloth as McLintock or Adams, a player proud of his colours who expects others to follow the standards he sets.

Just as Adams had done with Bergkamp, Tierney is reported to have unsettled some team-mates with his aggressive and full-throttle approach to training when he first arrived.

But isn’t that precisely the level of commitment, determination and passion that we want to see from our captain?

Don’t we want our captain and indeed every player to exert the same effort that we fans would if we were suitably fit and skilled to do so?

At the very most, Aubameyang has two years left as Arsenal captain and Tierney’s credentials as his successor are indisputable.

When Arteta talks about the culture of the club and non-negotiables, Tierney ticks every single box.