The mad world of an Arsenal captain from on pitch strops to confronting fans

Arteta made the call after Aubameyang's second disciplinary breach of the year, ending his two-year stint as Gunners' captain in unceremonious fashion.

A late return from a trip home followed an earlier incident ahead of the north London derby, leaving Arteta with a tough decision to make.

The Spaniard acted in headline-making fashion, but as a former Arsenal captain himself, Arteta knows just what a curse the armband can be.

Club greats such as Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry led the club either side of the millennium in legendary fashion, but following Henry's departure to Barcelona in 2007, the armband has failed to find a bicep worthy of its honour.

William Gallas took the baton from Henry, but only lasted a year after a questionable interview in which he criticised his teammates and sulked on the pitch after a game against Birmingham. He was dropped by manager Arsene Wenger, and later replaced as his team's leader, with Gallas ending up joining Tottenham.

Cesc Fabregas was the natural replacement and the one everyone wanted after emerging from the club's academy as a world class talent, but despite two years setting the standard at the helm, things ended in a sorry manner in 2011.

He forced a move to childhood club Barcelona after some painful encouragement from his Spanish teammates, and further tainted his reputation as a Gunners legend by later joining rivals Chelsea.

The leadership role was then passed onto Robin van Persie, who was leading the club's trophy charge with some unstoppable goal-scoring, but things turned out even worse than with his predecessor.

Van Persie did his best as captain with a whopping 37 goals in 48 games, but with the club falling short in all competitions, the Dutchman forced a move to Manchester United, who he blasted to Premier League glory in his debut season at Old Trafford.

Whilst van Persie was lifting his first league title, Thomas Vermaelen had taken up his role in the dressing room between 2012 and 2014, but he quickly became another star to be tempted by Barcelona and went onto move to Spain and win the Champions League in 2015.

Then came Arteta's two-year stint, followed by that of Per Mertesacker from 2016 to 2018, but both spent more time without the armband than with it, as the former only started eight per cent of league games, and the latter just six per cent, according to whoscored.

A marginally less injury-prone Laurent Koscielny was then given the gig, but became yet another player to force his way out of the club when he ended a nine-year spell with Arsenal by joining Bordeaux after refusing to take part in pre-season ahead of the 2019/20 campaign.

A brief stint for Granit Xhaka under Unai Emery ended embarrassingly when he bit back at Arsenal fans who jeered as he was substituted off against Crystal Palace in 2019, removing his shirt and abusing fans back.

Emery appointed Aubameyang as the natural successor as he led the team with his goals much like van Persie, and he got off to a fine start to life under Arteta, almost single-handedly winning his new boss an FA Cup and Community Shield.

What has followed has been a miserable climb down for a man who was one of Europe's premier marksmen over the past decade, with his chances of regaining that status in serious doubt.

For Arteta though, things look just as complicated, with no stand-out candidate in-line for his first ever appointment of a captain, the curse of the Emirates armband may prove impossible to avoid.