William Gallas is likely to have played his last game for Arsenal after he was stripped of the club captaincy and dropped from the squad to play Manchester City today for criticising his team-mates in an interview while on international duty with France this week. The 31-year-old defender was also fined £180,000, two weeks' wages, by Arsène Wenger when he reported for what he thought would be clear-the-air talks with his manager.

In the interview that cost him the captaincy and put a question mark over his future at the club, Gallas claimed that two Arsenal players - believed to be Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott - fought in the dressing-room at half-time during the 4-4 draw with Tottenham Hotspur last month and that team morale at the club has suffered this season because of the bad attitude and behaviour of one unnamed player.

Gallas arrived at Arsenal's training ground in Hertfordshire yesterday expecting to be let off with a slap on the wrist or a fine but Wenger decided to act. Gallas tried to explain that his comments had been taken out of context and that their real meaning had been lost in translation but Wenger believed that he could no longer rely on a player who had broken the unwritten rule that what goes on in the dressing-room stays there.

Wenger called time on Gallas's 15-month spell as captain after it emerged that he had also complained about the behaviour of a France team-mate, believed to be Samir Nasri, the Arsenal midfield player, in his autobiography, which was published in France this week. In the book, he describes tensions in France's squad during Euro 2008 caused by a young midfield player he refers to as “S”. French newspapers reported last night that “S” was Nasri. Gallas describes a confrontation with “S” on the training pitch in Switzerland. “Are you speaking to me? Who do you take yourself for? You're only 20 [which Nasri was at the time]... I am not your friend,” Gallas says he told the player. The player responded: “I'm not your friend, either,”

Manuel Almunia will replace Gallas as captain at the City of Manchester Stadium today because Kolo Touré, the vice-captain, is sidelined with a calf strain. Cesc Fàbregas, the Spain midfield player, who is the favourite to be given the armband permanently, is suspended. “It doesn't surprise me that Gallas has lost the captaincy,” Paul Davis, the former Arsenal midfield player, said. “Wenger had no option.”

Arsenal thought they had pulled off a transfer coup when they convinced Chelsea to let Gallas move to the Emirates Stadium as part of the deal that took Ashley Cole to Stamford Bridge in August 2006, but little has gone right for him since being handed the armband by Wenger at the start of last season. Wenger ignored calls to replace him after his petulant behaviour at the end of the 2-2 draw away to Birmingham City in February and he was in further trouble last month when he was photographed coming out of a nightclub with a cigarette in his mouth.

Gallas raised eyebrows at the start of the season by claiming that he would leave Arsenal if they did not win a trophy this season, but he is likely to be sold or loaned to an Italian or Spanish club when the transfer window opens in January. He claimed this week that he would like to end his career in France. “If I go, it won't be to just anywhere,” Gallas said. “It will be to a big club or nowhere at all.”

Arsenal have decided to claim compensation of up to £1.1million from the FA's insurers after Walcott dislocated his right shoulder while on England duty in Berlin on Tuesday.