Columnist of the year: Ian Bell

It is always good to hear freedom of speech - the right to rant, as columnists know it - being defended. It must be better still to be endorsed as honest and rational by a distinguished fellow professional.

On the other hand, if Roy Keane is the voice making the case for the defence, you might be in a bit of trouble.

Such has been the fate of William Gallas. Or rather, it has been one of the Frenchman's fates. Another is the loss of the Arsenal captaincy. A third is the humiliation of being dropped from the side entirely for yesterday's visit to Manchester City. A fourth, from which there is no escape, involves being cast into the outer darkness by Arsene Wenger.

To put it another way, Gallas might be well advised to investigate property prices in Italy, Spain, or even France. It's over, I think.

The big mistake was not to wash Arsenal's laundry in public, though that sin endures in a sport still gripped by the belief that players should park their brains in the boot room. The cardinal mistake, in Wenger World, was to be both lippy and aged 31.

Despite all his philosophising over science and nutrition, despite all the evidence that players these days endure for longer, Wenger has a thing about 30. Beyond it, even the biggest stars are defined as past it, or as good as. Even Thierry Henry - and Gallas is no Henry - ran across this iron law. At Arsenal, notoriously, it affects the length of the contracts offered to "the elderly".

Wenger is obsessed with youth, and applauded for it. Even when his board insists, year after year, that there is money to spend, the manager goes on testing Alan Hansen's Law.

"You can't win this thing' - or any other thing - with kids."

Professor Wenger has a theory to the contrary. He does not take kindly to mature sorts in the dressing room, especially when they suggest - I translate from the French - that them young lads ain't got no respect.

Keane has reminded us that certain people in the Premier League (he has never been one) "get upset dead easily". He has argued that sometimes captains have to be provocative in the dressing room if that's what it takes to "stir a few players up".

If Gallas merely disclosed that a stuttering Arsenal squad have been exchanging words, and that the captain has been asserting himself, what of it?

Keane did not forget to add, however, that "you've got to make sure you're at the top of your game to start pointing the finger". This could not be said honestly, lately, of Gallas. He may have attacked a fellow player - let's call him Robin van Persie - but the whiff of self-exculpation is strong.

Keane failed to mention, meanwhile, that William Gallas is no Roy Keane. Nor is the Frenchman a John Terry or a Steven Gerrard. Arsenal, which is to say Wenger, does not hold to the belief that any big player "is" the club. Besides, if you "write" an autobiography, and then submit to the demand for controversy, you might discover that you have given your boss the perfect excuse. It's known as the Alex Ferguson Riposte.

It is said that Wenger has stood by a captain often dismissed as wilful or eccentric. The suggestion that Gallas threatened to score an own goal if Chelsea did not allow him to leave in 2006 remains bizarre, and has never been explained fully. The sit-down sulk at Birmingham in February was not textbook behaviour from someone who claims to take pride in leading a team. The manager has persisted, nevertheless, in his support.

No longer. There were other ways to discipline Gallas. There might even have been a case for the idea that the captain was doing no more, in exposing arrogance and arguments, than acting on his coach's behalf. Instead, Wenger, supposedly unemotional, has lit the blue touchpaper and all but sacked a notable individual for the crime of indiscretion.

Did Gallas fail to understand? Did Wenger fail to care? Or did both parties understand one another perfectly? The January transfer window will be along shortly. Far from returning to paramount form, Arsenal have Aston Villa on their heels, and persist in squandering points.

You could blame both coach and captain, but that is not the way in which these affairs are conducted. If the captain elects to complain, moreover, about the work ethic of the manager's cherished kids, there can be only one outcome. The 31-year-old may meanwhile conclude that a final payday, far from London, is now in order. In short, the fuss could suit both parties.

What if Gallas is correct, however? What if he has been no worse than honest? Arsenal have a long-term strategic problem. They lack, as yet, the financial firepower these days required at the top of the European game. They lose players others would bribe royally. And the manager goes on saying that his youngsters will come good, one day. Somehow that day is never today.

They can astonish still. Given history, the ability to overcome Manchester United recently was no small thing. Gallas deserves some, even much, of the credit for the win. He can be erratic, but he surely counts as an asset.

It would appear, nevertheless, that in Wenger's eyes he is a wasting asset.

So, another one bites the dust. At Arsenal, for now, that is the manager's prerogative. But what one hears from the Emirates is the rising noise of grumbling complaint. The fans whose gratitude to Wenger once knew no bounds have begun to ask questions about ample money unspent, beautiful football with few bounteous results and rows for no obvious reason.

The story, first written in the vicinity of Old Trafford, is becoming familiar. Arsenal blow up; they bottle it; their desire is deficient.

Certain roguish types in Manchester like to say such things. But William Gallas is not, and never has been, Arsene Wenger's real problem.