Next Season: Captain

One of the things we missed last season, amongst many, was a sense of leadership on the pitch. In the not too distant past, there have been captains who you felt gave direction to the team, led by example, and provided some much needed impetus to proceedings; Mark Kinsella and Andy Reid spring to mind. Unfortunately I'm not sure the same can be said of Mark Hudson and it raises the question as to who should be given the armband for next season.

In fairness to Hudson, he was thrown into a very difficult situation by Alan Pardew. He had arrived from Palace and so needed to win the trust of the supporters, he was expected to be the rock of a frankly woeful back line with an ever changing central defensive partner, and captain a side expected to win promotion back to the Premier League. Add injury problems of his own to contend with and all things considered, it wasn't a particularly easy ride for him.

So what to do next season? The trouble we have at the moment is that we don't know who will still be with the club, which makes spectaculating somewhat difficult. For the sake of argument (and this article), let's say that no players other than those already known to have been released will be leaving the club. What does that leave us with? Frighteningly little unfortunately. If Hudson is not retained (and there is every chance that he will be) and that Matt Holland will not feature regularly enough to be offered the job, when you look at what we have then there is only one serious contender: Nicky Bailey.

Whilst you may argue it wasn't difficult to rise above the mediocrity last season, Bailey undoubtedly deserved the player of the season award and was one of few players who actually looked like he cared when he pulled on the red shirt. A quiet mid-season patch aside, if it wasn't for his goals and midfield play then our position would have looked a lot more nasty than it was. His style reminded me a lot of Reid, driving things forward on the pitch and trying to motivate his team mates to chase harder.

In spite of this, Bailey's desire to stay at The Valley hardly appears to be overwhelming. They may well have been misinterpreted, as comments to tabloids sometimes are, but the message appears to have been 'I'll stay if I have to'. This raises the question as to whether his heart is really in it, but I think if it stays then it will be. If he doesn't then my second choice candidate, for lack of any real competition, would be Rob Elliot. I've never thought goalkeeper the best position on the pitch to have a captain, but Elliot is passionate about the club and would be sure to 'have a quiet word' with any player not pulling their weight. If last season was anything to go by, there might be a few of them.