Is Cazorla the right man to be Arsenal’s captain?

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Arsenal are just a day away from kicking off the Premier League campaign for the 2016/17 season, with the opening fixture coming against Liverpool. Yet with just a day to go, Arsenal fans still do not know who their official club captain is, after Mikel Arteta’s departure from the club.

Mikel Arteta retired from the professional game at the end of last season so he could link up with Manchester City’s coaching team. The Spaniard held the captaincy for two years following on from Thomas Vermaelen’s move to Barcelona and during his time as captain, Arteta lifted a single FA Cup and a single Community Shield.

During this two year period however, Arteta’s career at Arsenal was slowly winding down, with injuries consistently keeping him out of the team. It meant that his captaincy role was often conducted from behind closed doors and more often than not, the vice-captain would assume the role of captain on official match days.

Now that Arteta has left Arsenal, The Gunners are of course in need a new captain and Arsene Wenger is set to name Santi Cazorla in that role, according to reports that broke out last night. Cazorla has been at the club since 2012 and at 31 years old he is one of the more experienced players in the side. Cazorla certainly has the experience to lead a team forward, but does he have the voice and passion to lead?
In my opinion Cazorla isn’t loud enough on the pitch to show true leadership skills. He is in a good position on the pitch in midfield to see the game developing around him, but I don’t feel he has that presence as a strong, powerful and loud captain that you want to see committed to everything the team does.

Cazorla isn’t a bad choice by Wenger, I mean he’s chosen a sulky Gallas and RVP in the past, who simply wasn’t suited as a captain up front. Ramsey and Cech were rumoured to also being in contention, whilst I think Mertesacker may have got it had he not been injured. Personally I would’ve gone for Laurent Koscielny because he is a regular in the team, reads the game extremely well and is an experienced player both in age and number of years at Arsenal.

Would Cazorla be your choice of captain at Arsenal?

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