Clichy: Gallas is a leader on the pitch

Defender Gaël Clichy has praised team mate William Gallas for turning his career at Arsenal around after the events of last season.

Gallas was demoted as Arsenal captain after revealing dressing room secrets in a controversial biography, though he didn't do himself any favours when he was shown to be too emotional.

This season has seen Gallas form a strong defensive partnership with new signing Thomas Vermaelen, and ironically the pair are Arsenal's strongest strike partnership with 7 goals between them.

Clichy said: "William has the quality, he just needed someone to have a good relationship and good partnership with. And with Thomas something just clicked on the first day - they look good together.

"Hopefully, William and Thomas will stay fit ... without any arguments. We missed a good relationship between the two centre-backs.

"William has shown people he is still a great player. Even with the French side we never play with the same centre-backs but he is always in the team.

"He is more a leader on the pitch and Thomas is the hard man, and you need to have that sort of good relationship.

"We have it and we needed a player like Thomas. He's good in the air, good in the tackle and he scores goals. He's the complete player. You need these kind of spirits, like Martin Keown.

"When you see someone getting really angry and maybe putting in a hard challenge, it can give you a little boost. That's what he brings to the team and that's good. He plays fair but he is hard."

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