Arsène Wenger is facing mounting pressure to strip William Gallas of the Arsenal captaincy after the France defender launched a verbal attack on his team-mates yesterday.

In an outburst that goes some way towards explaining the club’s problems this season, Gallas revealed details of a confrontation between two players in the dressing-room at half-time of last month’s 4-4 draw with Tottenham Hotspur and complained at length about the insulting behaviour of an unnamed team-mate.

Wenger, a stickler for the sanctity of the dressing-room, is furious that internal problems have been made public and is understood to have said as much to Gallas in a meeting at the club’s training ground yesterday.

Gallas’s captaincy credentials have been in question since his on-field tantrum after Arsenal conceded a late equaliser in the match away to Birmingham City in February and he was fined two weeks’ wages after he was photographed leaving a nightclub with a cigarette in his mouth last month. Wenger will not take any action before tomorrow’s Barclays Premier League visit to Manchester City but he plans to review the captaincy over the next couple of weeks, with Cesc Fàbregas and Gaël Clichy the most likely successors.

The manager’s decision may rest on Gallas’s standing among his team-mates, who have reportedly grown distant from their captain as a result of his repeated criticisms — particularly the individual singled out yesterday.

Although not mentioning names, Gallas, 31, gave several clues by revealing that the player in question is six years younger than him and that an on-field row took place in an attacking situation. Robin van Persie, Bacary Sagna and Emmanuel Eboué are the only 25-year-olds in Arsenal’s squad.

“There was a problem at half-time,” Gallas said. “The only thing that I could say was, ‘Guys, we resolve these problems after the match, not at half-time.’ There are things that can’t be said and can’t be tolerated. When, as captain, some players come up to you and talk to you about a player, complaining about him, and then during the match you speak to this player and the player in question insults us.

“There comes a time where we can no longer comprehend how this can happen. I am trying to defend myself a bit without giving names. Otherwise I’m taking all the blame. It’s very frustrating. I’m 31, the player is six years younger than me.”

Many of Gallas’s complaints about his team-mates lacking stomach for the fight are familiar, but he went farther by suggesting that many of the younger players are more interested in collecting big salaries than winning trophies.

The former Chelsea defender, who was accused of threatening to score an own goal by his former club when he left Stamford Bridge in controversial circumstances two years ago, also claimed that some of his team-mates are only interested in performing in big games, such as the victory over Manchester United two weeks ago.

“We are not brave enough in battle,” Gallas said. “I think we need to be soldiers. We have to be warriors.

“There are teams who can do it well against us and we have to be able to face up to these attacks. That is how they will forge their character and how they will get experience. Even though they’ve played a certain number of matches, they’re still young and still learning.

“Big contracts — which Arsenal’s teenage players have now and United’s starlets waited years for — may be a factor. That makes the difference, perhaps. You can rest on your laurels, that’s for sure. The problem is that the Manchester youngsters have been through something, they have won something.

“Maybe, against Manchester, it was the whole team that fought for victory. But when you stop fighting together, there comes a time when the midfield will sink, the defenders, unfortunately, can also sink. That’s what happened against Aston Villa.

“We have to understand that to be champions, you have to play big matches every weekend and fight. We are coming up against teams who are not scared to play football against us, who are not scared to take us on at our place and this is becoming dangerous for Arsenal.”