Cesc Fabregas has underlined his commitment to Arsenal by stating his willingness to skipper the club.
The 20-year-old Spain midfielder has chosen to stay at the Emirates Stadium despite interest from Real Madrid, and he feels the club has a chance for success this season despite the loss of Thierry Henry to Barcelona.
Gilberto Silva is the current captain following Henry's departure but Fabregas admits he would eventually like the armband.
'Everybody wants this kind of responsibility and 100% me as well,' he said. 'It's something that I have liked ever since I have been young and it would be no problem for me to be captain of this club.'
Fabregas is confident Henry's departure will not be affected next season, although he admits the France forward will be missed.
'Thierry has been really, really important to this club over the past eight years,' he said on arsenal.com. 'We have scored a lot of goals because of him but now he is gone and we have to move on. We wish him all the best at Barcelona.
'The future is looking good. We have very good young players and most of them are teenagers. We are all ready to fight for the League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the Carling Cup, for everything.
'We must fight for everything that is in front of us. We must prove we are not just young but that we are winners.'
Wenger wants Arsenal to have ruthless streak
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger wants to see his side develop a ruthless streak against weaker opposition to give themselves a chance in the Premier League title race.
The Gunners took points off the other teams in the top four last season and did the double over winners Manchester United but still finished 21 points off the pace.
'If you make a table of the results against the other teams in the top four, then we were top,' Wenger said. 'Then if you make a table against the teams in the top half, Manchester United have 43 points, we have 40, so do Chelsea, and Liverpool have 33.
'That shows that we lost the championship against teams in the bottom half of the table.
'So that is where we will have to be much more efficient this season. We have to be consistent in our mental preparation, in our ruthlessness as well.'
Defender Kolo Toure agrees with his manager, and added: 'We showed we can make it. If you can beat Manchester United you can beat any team in the league.
'Maybe sometimes what we missed was being focused on the game through the whole season. To be the champions you need to concentrate for all the games.'
Meanwhile, Wenger is likely to wait until the season starts before appointing a director of football at the Emirates Stadium.
He has been looking for a new man to work with since the departure of David Dein as vice-chairman in April but is willing to wait in an attempt to keep a settled atmosphere over the summer.
Club scout Gilles Grimandi is considered the front-runner for the new post, with Reading's Nicky Hammond also suggested as a suitable candidate. In the meantime, long-serving Arsenal director Ken Friar has been working with Wenger.
'I wanted to do it before the end of the season when I started buying and selling,' said Wenger on the club's official website.
'But then I thought that now is the worst time because I have no time to tell someone how I want to do things.
'I did not want to unsettle the team before the end of the transfer market. So at the moment I work with Ken Friar and it is working well for us.'
Wenger has brought Lukasz Fabianski, Eduardo Da Silva, Havard Nordtveit and Bacary Sagna to the club this summer as Arsenal plan for the post-Thierry Henry era, although the most important signing would be for the manager to agree a new contract.
The Frenchman's current deal expires at the end of the coming season, with negotiations under way.
'For me, I think he will stay,' said Toure on Arsenal TV Online. 'Mr Wenger brings something special to this club and to keep him would be a great thing.
'We need to win some trophies and I'm sure Mr Wenger will bring lots of trophies to the club.'
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