Arsene Wenger maintains it would be a "cheap excuse" to lay blame for Arsenal's failure to win the Barclays Premier League on captain William Gallas, but refused to confirm just who would lead the team next season. The 30-year-old former Chelsea defender came in for criticism when he broke down in the centre-circle following the last-gasp draw at Birmingham City.

Gallas touched on the subject in his programme notes before the Everton game. He said: "This was my first season as captain and I can tell you that I have certainly learnt a lot in the job. As for my thoughts on my captaincy so far, I want to keep that to myself. The season is not yet over so we cannot reflect on the season yet, we can do that at the end."

While Wenger did not single out his captain for any blame, seeing Arsenal's failure to last the course as a collective weakness, he did not go so far as to hand Gallas a ringing endorsement of his leadership role. "I don't share the view that Gallas is a bad captain," the manager said. "He is a captain who is very committed and tries to work hard for the team.

"He had an outburst at Birmingham, but I still believe today that, even if that was a mistake, that was not why we did not win the championship. That would be too easy as an excuse because there are other incidents. That would be a cheap excuse.

"At the time [of the Birmingham game] we were five points in front and everybody had been praising his captaincy. I believe we all make mistakes and we had to come back as a unit and try to win the championship."

However, Wenger would not commit on just who would wear the armband come August. "It [the captaincy issue] has been raised by a lot of newspapers, but I must say I have not looked at the situation yet," he said. "My priority is to keep this team together and then we will see where we go for next season."

Wenger will have some rebuilding work to do over the summer, with Mathieu Flamini signing for AC Milan and speculation continuing over the future of Alexander Hleb. "I will try to buy, maybe in the defensive area and one on the creative side of the game as well because we had some players, important players, who were out this year," he said. "When there is a problem in England, people say 'you have to buy' - but you have to consider as well the development of your players internally.

"It isn't just down to money because we have bought players for nothing and they became world stars. It is as well down to the quality of the scouting, the quality of the work in training and the quality of the development in the players. I believe much more in that, working in an intelligent way to make a player improve.

"If we lose, people leave the game and say 'Wenger you must buy a centre forward' if we haven't scored, or they want a central defender if someone has made a mistake. But you have to accept that the team can be developed.

"This team made 68 points last year and this year 83. That is 15 points difference and in between we lost Thierry Henry and we lost many, many important players during the season. So you cannot say the team has not developed. Now the target for next season must be to make 90 or 92 points."

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