Summer Target no.1 Captured – Thomas Vermaelen 20 June, 2009
Posted by lasagnechef in Arsenal News.trackback
Well as I’m sure you are well aware Thomas Vermaelen has signed for Arsenal and as always it’s ‘on a long term contract for an undisclosed fee’. Ajax have confirmed he has been bought for £8.5m but could rise to £10.2m depending on appearances and what not. I have a feeling we will be paying that full fee of just over ten millions pounds though – he is the most expensive defender we’ve ever bought and I’m expecting him to go straight into the first eleven alongside Gallas or Toure.
However the futures’ of those two are not sorted; Kolo Toure could be on his way to City if The Times are correct with their reported incoming £12m bid. I’d feel really confident about our defense next season if we could keep Vermaelen, Gallas and Toure but I expect all three demand first team football. If I had to say I think one of Toure or Gallas will leave and if we do get offered that reported £12m for Toure then I think we’d be mad not to take it.
I love Kolo Toure, but as much as I don’t like to admit it he is in decline. Man City would be paying for experience and heart, which is why I’d still be gutted if we lost him. There’s still a chance Gallas could go, there’s talk of Milan lining up a bid and Gallas himself might try to engineer a move if he’s not happy at the club which wouldn’t surprise me. If I had to choose one of the two to keep it would be a tough choice – my heart says Kolo, but my head says Gallas. Since he lost the captaincy he was a solid defender and a true professional.
Anyways, back to Vermaelen. It was obvious we needed a defender and I’m glad we have that sorted now. I believe Wenger’s back from holiday now so I look forward to a couple more additions this summer; one isn’t enough. Vermaelen seems to be everything we need though – He’s an experienced defender, he’s got a good few years ahead of him, he’s played many games in Europe, he’s an established International and he’s left-footed. Once upon a time you could’ve said all those things about Silvestre – Vermaelen is the much younger and much improved version of the ex-United centre-back so I think if any of our defense is leaving it’s going to be Silvestre.
There’s been a lot of talk about Vermaelen’s height and in his official factfile the club have listed him as 182cm (6 feet). I don’t know why there has been so much fuss about how tall he is though, if he can defend he can defend. I’d be a bit worried if he was 4 foot 8 but he’s not so lets just forget about it.
I can’t wait to see him in action this pre-season. All I remember of him was him he and van Persie squaring up when we played Ajax that time. He’s coming here with a fresh reputation and can work to become a respected Premier League defender. I do know that he is a committed player and he says:
“I just want to assure the Arsenal fans that I will give everything for this Club and I hope we can enjoy winning some trophies together next season.”
He also said how he was sad to be leaving Ajax, which is understandable. He fell just short of 150 appearances for the Amsterdam club and became captain of the side during his time there. They will sorely miss him but hopefully he can be just as successful here.
As I said, I don’t think we should close the chequebook here though. A holding midfielder should be the next item on our shopping list, a long overdue purchase but one that’s still required. Also, there’s bound to be departures this summer and we might have to account for those too. It must be said though we do look a little bit more complete with this signing. A little bit more complete than Man United anyway who are now without Ronaldo and Tevez for next season, leaving them just Rooney and Berbatov who has hardly impressed since whoring himself from Tottenham.
It’s nice to come back from my break with some proper news to report. Not a great deal has gone on whilst I have been in Kent and there’s no point in me re-capping it all now. The fixtures were announced on Wednesday but that’s all been discussed elsewhere now. The only other bit of news today is about Emmanuel Eboue who says he’s had no contact with PSG. He says they are a good club but has no immediate plans to leave Arsenal, however he did say he wasn’t happy with the lack of appearances he’s getting. Well with Rosicky, Arshavin, Walcott and Nasri to compete with next season I don’t think it’s going to get any better for him.
Right that’s your lot for today, thanks for reading and speak to you soon.
I wont mind losing Kolo Toure, as much as i love the guy, he has not been the same player he was since the ACN. We’ll also be losing him again this season coming, so maybe it is time to get shot of him.
To be only valued at £12m is a lil far off his evaluation. Toure is easily worth £15m. If we are to sell him to the Citeh, then we have to play hardball, seeing as they have all the money in the world.
Give us Richards plus £10m cash and we’ll call it a deal.
p.s. Without being Racist, i believe Wenger should sell all our African players (i am African myself, before u start to judge me).
My reason being is that we are going to lose them at a valuable point of the season, especially this season, when we have to play a tough month in december-febuary. The likes of Adebayor, Eboue, Toure and Song would leave a big whole in the team if they all go to the ACN. If we get rid of them now (apart from Song), then we can prepare for life without them in January/Febuary.
Thanks for a well balanced view of TV’s signing.
no no no noooooo, i prefer losing Gallas, but Kolo needs to stay , he’s a good and experience guy i love in that area. let the new signing proof him self . then competition will be in the club. don’t even attempt selling my guy Toure.
Konkolo// Embarrasing statement Way to represent the continent Br’o
Adebayor is statistically our best striker.
Kolo has the heart of a lion and is made out of granit although I agree Gallas is the better defender…
Eboue is easily the best “secondchoice right back” in the league/world
and an extremely vesratile player although sometimes frustrating.
Song has come of age and may well be the defensive anwser in midfield he has also proven to a very proven defender is actually quite excellent in the air.
I will not be happy too see the back of any of our African players .. but I expect 1-2 to leave.
Kingkolo// Embarrasing statement Way to represent the continent Br’o
Adebayor is statistically our best striker.
Kolo has the heart of a lion and is made out of granit although I agree Gallas is the better defender…
Eboue is easily the best “secondchoice right back” in the league/world
and an extremely versatile player although sometimes frustrating.
Song has come of age and may well be the defensive answser in midfield he has also proven to be a very proven defender and is actually quite excellent in the air.
I will not be happy too see the back of any of our African players .. but I expect 1-2 to leave. -Soryy about the spelling .. in the previous post … it’s “midsummer” in Sweden and lets just say my head aint clear.
Forgot too say it — Great bloggin mate Easily among the best Arsenalblogs out there. I value yor opinion. Simply because I tend too agree with you.
it makes no sense that we say we want to be a great club but yet we dont model great clubs. Man u and barca are the 2 best presently and they have their loyal players like puyol for years. why not keep toure gallas and verm. Toure goes to african cup of nations, gallas is injuryrponed. and I have no clue why arsene bought silvestre if he doenst have faith in him to use him. So id trade silvestre’s spot for senderos in a heartbeat. man u has, vidic, ferdinand, oshea, wes brown.. all great and experienced, so why cant we keepour players. we need depth in our squad. all fit players that are readty to play. But i dont understand arsenal. We need the depth. I dont understand why each year we replace players instead of ADDING to the squad. Great teams add and not just replace. Arsenal must not replace toure with verm, we must add verm to the squad.
then eboue wants to leave. I cant understand arsenal, we need a big squad.. go in depth for a while and win a trophy, the prize money gained from going to a champian;s league final or fa cup final will repay anydepth. We need a big squad. IT hurts to knwo that van persie is injury prowned, , adebayor has issues, eduardo injuried, bendtner
, is still learning ALTHOUGH VELA IS MUCH BETTER, but yet we dont have a strinking image. We had , man u has rooney, liverpool has torres. We need consistency. i would rather denilson type of player that can play 90% of our matches than have players that are terribly injury prowned. Senderos can come back, gerard pique left manu and became great at barca. So igues snederos can be transformed. WE need depth.
i don’t think vermaelen will straight away demand to be in starting eleven week in week out. wenger might ease him into the squad slowly and he will get regular spot when toure gone to ACN. next season he will be first choice when gallas contract expired. so now what about djourou? i could see him and vermaelen to be our first choice in years to come but until he could get there, will djourou willing to wait for it? toure after all still 28 so he got a good 3 4 years left in him.
FUCK THAT!!!! I DONT WANT KOLO TO LEAVE!!! HI HEART, DESIRE AND COMMITMENT IS ZERO TO NONE.
Heart! Desire! Commitment!
Don’t mean jack shit if you can’t defend.
Yes, yes, we all love Kolo. But he CAN’T DEFEND!
If you have the time, go through all the goals we have conceded over the last five years. The number of times you could point the finger at our Kolo is quite staggering! For a team that has a desire to compete with the very best in europe, we need better defenders! I’m not surpised there was a full out with the lunatic Gallas. We might not be very fond of him, but on his day the frenchman is a truly world class defender. Unlike the flapper Toure.
Cast your minds back to the Champions League Quarter Final the season before last at Anfield. Having got our noses in front by the way of a wonderful run by Walcott and a tidy finish by Mr Wantaway, we had seven minutes to survive. Just 45 seconds later the so called experienced world class defender Toure puts a tackle in on Babel in front of the Kop that was truly ridiculous, as Babel still had a mountain of work to do, with two more defenders and a goalkeeper to beat! That for me sums up our Kolo. Yes we love his desire and commitment. When I play football, I show desire and commitmint but I’m still not very good! Harsh words but unfortunately the truth. If Man City offer us anything above five million, we should bite there hands off!
Indeed，Kolo is a great guy，but as an Arsenal player he has reached his peak。Gallas has proved time and again that he is ，by nature， a troublemaker and immature。
Vermaelen will prove to be our new Keown or even better。We are
still in need of our Tony Adams clone.
Wenger is looking at Bassong. Is he suitable？
12 mill now for Kolo is just simply，very good bizniss。
Sell off Gallas in January if no replacement is ready now。
Senderos，Sylvestre and Eboue are just extra weight.
Let’s get a good deal for Adeprimadonna and bring in a STRIKER who
appreciates being with us.Hopefully, Eduardo will really be back this year.