As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
Author: Nigel Brown
Posted on: 03 June 2009 - 17:30
Category: Football
Comments: 1 Go...
Sport.co.uk understands Arsenal have completed the signing of AFC Ajax centre back Thomas Vermaelen for a fee believed to be in the region of £10 million. According to sources inside the club, the deal for the Belgian international will be confirmed in the next 48 hours.
The 23-year-old moved to Ajax in 2004 from Antwerp outfit Germinal Beerschot and has since played 85 times for the Amsterdam giants as well as accumulating 21 caps for his country.
The news comes only hours after former Arsenal captain Tony Adams revealed that he had watched the player on behalf of Arsene Wenger but hinted that despite his obvious quality his physical attributes may let him down.
"I think Thomas is a very good player but I don’t think he’s ready for the Arsenal," Adams told Setanta.
"I don’t think the punters at Arsenal would like another small one.
"I don’t know whether he’ll end up going for a bigger player. We’ll see how much money we’ve got first.
"I have been looking at the Dutch league, but to be honest with you it’s been decimated.
He is 5ft 11. IMO not what we need. We need a tall dominant center half. if this is true, then i dont see this as an improvement on our current pairing of gallas and toure. I want us to buy lescott
Even Wenger has spoken about the size problem in the centre of our defence, and I'm sure he's aware that signing a 5'11" defender is far from ideal.... that said, IF he's an utterly outstanding defender, then sometimes you have to just go for it, as top class players at a reasonable price don't come along often!
Anway, the story has come from Sport.co.uk (who??? ) so I'm not even sure it's worthy of a thread at this point.
Gunnersaurus wrote:How can you write him off without even seeing him?
what i am trying to get at is, i dont feel it is what we need to improve our leaky defence. Kolo and gallas are fine players but dont play well next to each other. But would play well with the right player next to them, like they both have in the past. Toure & campbell. Gallas and terry?
we'll have to sign 2 centre halves anyway (Silvestre will be gone as will either Toure or Gallas), so the size doesn't worry me that much at this point.
Let's see what happens. No other reports to back it up so far, so it's likely bollocks as you say g88ner.
Never heard of him tbh, had a look on the scouting network that is you tube and he seems to score from a lot of corners.
5 11 is not a midget and being dominant in the air is more about attacking the ball then being tall, look at Zat Knight, he's tall and shit, Baresi was small and he was one of the all time greats.
rtpgooner wrote:He is 5ft 11. IMO not what we need. We need a tall dominant center half. if this is true, then i dont see this as an improvement on our current pairing of gallas and toure. I want us to buy lescott
Eggsactly what we need. Another average player with no experience of Champions league football or any other major competition
) so I'm not even sure it's worthy of a thread at this point.
