I do agree that AW is largely to blame for why some of our fans don't think a proper leader on the field is important.
As far as I'm concerned, the last good captain we had was Vieira and since then its mostly been downhill, which can obviously be seen from our fortunes and how the team has reacted to adversity over and over again
Let's not forget that we once had a captain under him who staged a one man protest while the game was still going on!! 20 years later, I'm not sure anything has come close to that