Captain Decision Delayed

Ståle Solbakken has delayed his decision on who his captain will be, after last season’s fall out with Lukas Podolski.

Solbakken’s shock move to remove the armband from Podolski proved to be very controversial in Cologne, where the striker was idolised.

There was captain controversy at Molineux too, with Mick McCarthy giving the armband to new signing Roger Johnson, taking it from Karl Henry. However, Johnson was removed of the captaincy by Terry Connor, taking over from the sacked McCarthy, and Stephen Ward was initially handed the duty of leading the team, before Henry took the armband back when he returned from injury.

Now, Solbakken is happy to wait until he has studied the players this week and during the trip to Ireland before making a decision on who he will make skipper.

He said, "I want to wait a little bit to see which direction we’re going. It’s important to be together with the group for a while before making that decision but, no matter what happens, I can promise it won’t be as controversial as last year when I took it from Podolski.

The whole of Germany was after me for a few weeks after that. I think I had 70 journalists at my first press conference afterwards and, at that moment, I only knew 25 German words.”