"When you play with somebody and you don't even talk to each other on the pitch it's really difficult," he said. "Me and Gallas ... we didn't talk to each other at all. One of us had to go and it was me. It was coming down to me really because I didn't want to put the team in a difficult position, so I was the one who said I wanted to go.

"As a player, I had great respect for Gallas because he was older than me and in Africa when someone is older you have respect for them, but I think sometimes he took advantage of that in some ways. I had six years at Arsenal but the last two were very difficult. It can happen in football that you argue with somebody in training but when you are not even talking on the pitch something has to change."

Touré will be back at Arsenal tomorrow, leading out City in a match laced with subplots, most notably Emmanuel Adebayor's first return to the club since that rancorous encounter at Eastlands last September, when he raked his studs down Robin van Persie's face and celebrated scoring by running almost the entire length of the pitch to goad the Arsenal fans.