Arsenal: 3 reasons Aubameyang should be stripped of captaincy

2. Aubameyang is Not a Leader

Pretty straightforward, right?

What is a captain, at least historically? They are a leader. They are Patrick Vieira, they are Tony Adams. Heck, they’re Cesc Fabregas who, despite his age, was the talisman of the team and led in his own way.

We can question whether it was a mistake to hand Aubameyang the captaincy in the first place, but truth be told it was slim pickings. A side lacking in out and out leaders (who weren’t Granit Xhaka) the natural handover of the armband went to the guy who was the best player in the team and scoring all the goals.

It was very much a ‘you will do’ move. And a fairly understandable one.

But with such a young squad for this Premier League season in need of a vocal and commanding presence to guide them and, well, lead them, the quiet and generally quite shy figure of Aubameyang isn’t the player you’d ideally want shouldering that responsibility.

Fans aren’t privy to behind the scenes stuff (until the documentary) and for all we know the armband might mean next to nothing in the grand scheme of things: just because he is the captain doesn’t mean he leads on the training pitch, for example.

It does, however, feel like the time for someone else to step in.

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