Morning all and what a fine Saturday morning. No hangover and a new signing to play with. Well, you know what I mean.
Yesterday Arsenal officially announced the signing of Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen. Arsene Wenger said:
Thomas is a great signing for Arsenal Football Club, and we are all delighted that he is joining us. Thomas is primarily a left-footed centre back, but he’s multi-functional and can also play at left back. He is strong technically with a positive winner’s attitude and I have no doubt his arrival will strengthen our team. Thomas Vermaelen will be a huge asset to Arsenal.
And the player himself said:
I’m just so happy to be joining Arsenal. This is a great Club with a world class manager, high quality players and a fantastic stadium. Everything is set up for Arsenal to be very successful for years to come and I joined this Club because I know Arsenal will be challenging for trophies.
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.
Well, we wanted a defender, we’ve got a defender. That, my friends, is a positive start to this summer’s transfer business. He’s young, as it goes, but he’s got plenty of experience, he’s obviously got good leadership qualities having been captain of Ajax and his best years are well and truly ahead of him.
As a player I can’t say I know too much about him. I know we’ve played against Ajax and he’s been involved but I tend not to notice the opposition too much, unless they’re absolutely outstanding on the day or a massive cunny.
His factfile puts his height at 6′ which is just fine. That he’s not 6’4 is not an issue at all. A good defender is a good defender not matter what height he is. You don’t need to me to give you examples of great centre-halves who have been shorter than the norm. I’m looking forward to seeing him in an Arsenal shirt for the first time, and he’ll be reporting for duty when pre-season kicks off in early July.
As I mentioned yesterday the fact that we’ve done this deal so early in the summer is a good sign. Hopefully the rest of our business can be completed as soon as possible.
East Lower’s photoshop made me chuckle (but get your laughs in quick, his name is pronounced Ver-mah-len and not Ver-mail-en).
Vermaelen’s arrival has done nothing to quash the rumours about Kolo Toure and Manchester City. The Times is reporting a £12m bid is forthcoming. This may be from fresh information but it seems to be more or less a reprint of the rumours that have been going around for a while now. Either way there’s a bit of smoke here, we know Kolo was unhappy last season, and much as I love Kolo £12m is too good to turn down, should it actually happen.
That said it’d be a strange summer if we sold Kolo and kept Sylvester. And next season’s centre-half partnership is still tremendously unclear. Kolo is linked with Citeh, we know Gallas has been unhappy and if he left this summer it wouldn’t be a surprise, Sylvester is just not good enough and too old, that leaves only our Swiss pal.
So is it Thom and Djourou as first choice next season? I think the next move will be crucial. If Toure leaves I can’t see the boss letting Gallas go, not without buying another defender. And buying another defender would be most un-Wengerlike. He needs to buy, on average, 5.4 attackers for each defender he purchases. Anyway, it’ll keep us busy trying to figure out what he’s gonna do.
Boardeaux talk about Marouane Chamakh and say €10m wouldn’t be enough and make some strange comment about selling Emmanuel Adebayor.
And that’s about that. Nothing else going on so I shall let you bask in the warmth of a new signing. I like new signings.
Have a good one, more tomorrow.
