Arteta is coming to the end of his contract with Arsenal and may well end up in the dugout one day

Talking to Mikel Arteta makes you wonder why it has taken him until his fourth — and possibly final — season with Arsenal to gain the captain’s armband on a permanent basis. This softly spoken, yet steely eyed, Spaniard could scarcely be a closer manifestation of Arsène Wenger’s ideals if he took to wearing one of his manager’s oversized puffer jackets.

It is a curious footnote to Arsenal’s recent history that a manager responsible for imposing a so-called socialistic wage structure has appointed so many individualists as captain, such as Thierry Henry, William Gallas, Cesc Fàbregas and Robin van Persie, but Arteta seems a much better fit. The 32-year-old has spent his entire career subsuming his own needs to those of his team and will