Icardi not being suitable for the captaincy was something that could have been evaluated at the beginning of a pre-season. I also never liked him as a captain and felt that Handanovic was cheated by Mancini. But he grew into the part and aside from Perisic and Brozovic we cannot really see any of his teammates say anything bad about him, directly or indirectly. Rafinha and Cancelo who left last season for example seemed to be very pro-Icardi in their social media profiles during the escalation of this issue. If he was an unlikeable asshole as some of you portray him, he wouldn't have survived one second as the team's captain.
Spalletti had 2 pre-seasons with Icardi to decide on that. On his first, he stuck with him as he was the current captain. He got 29 goals out of him. Didn't see Spalletti or the management see Icardi as a bad influence or a bad captain during that time. They had all the time in the pre-season of 2018 to strip him of the captaincy. It was back then when the media was playing all the Icardi-Higuain swaps. Which ironically were orchestrated by Marotta at Juventus...
Then all of the sudden, Spalletti decides that Icardi is not fit for the captaincy? When did that idea pop up? July 2018? December 2018? February 2019?
How can anyone defend this club decision and how can anyone suggest that this would not be the outcome back then? Thankfully, we're still in the same thread and we can see what each member posted back then, it's not that hard. If this was handled with tactfulness at the end of the season with a new manager, then Icardi wouldn't have reacted this way.