Thomas Vermaelen

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Lane said:
As i've said you showed true wum colors in Ed's thread, so it's justified.

In order to play 3-5-2 regularly five CBs in the squad is enough.
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I'm not a WUM at all, Ed gets too much stick on here.

I'll hold my hands up, I misread your post. I agree we only need 5 if we're going for 3-5-2 every week, and I don't think we will. It'll most likely only be the odd time when the game suits. 4 centre backs should be fine.

See, I can admit when I'm wrong.
 
Trizy said:
That is exactly the case, I'm no professional footballer but I'm a CB for a sunday league team and had played beside the same guy all preseason and 5 games in the season, we conceded 2 goals in those 10 matches, he got injured and I was paired with 5 different CBs on different occasions and the result was dreadful, we conceded at least 1-3 goals a game afterward. A CB partnership is a must!
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I thought this was basic common sense to anyone who knows football. It seems like most people here are only concerned about the 'quality' of the signing than the consistency of the team. No one knew Koscienly and Mertesacker would have formed a great partnership and Wenger would be crazy to break that up just cause Vermaelen is club captain. It's unfortunate he can't get into the starting lineup but as a manager, the team comes first. I was a GK and believe me when I tell you that when you find a solid pair of centre backs...you don't change it for anything.
 
This thread is useless without a video. The most recent video is from 2 yrs ago,

But

He is a "defensive playmaker", really good at going forward, with an important goal scoring attitude.
He doesn't have a great elevation or heading, but he has a good timing which allow him to be a danger in the opponent area during corners and free kicks

 
Il Prete Rosso said:
He's a good defender, I don't quite understand why folks in here think otherwise.
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Because he had such a shit run of form that he got replaced as their main CB and has thus been a bench player for the past 2 seasons. As others have said, he's a good footballer but is not a great defender. Also injury-prone.
 
The number of changes in the back four last season was one of the underlying problems, signing an injury prone player [however good] will not help the situation. Rio and Vidic remain good CB's but their inability to play successive games became a problem.
 
pseudo_canadian said:
Because he had such a shit run of form that he got replaced as their main CB and has thus been a bench player for the past 2 seasons. As others have said, he's a good footballer but is not a great defender. Also injury-prone.
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He didn't get replaced. He was injured for a long period and during that time, Mert and Kos developed a very good partnership. It would have been silly for Wenger to break that up for the sake of playing Vermaelen.
 
Is Arsenal captain a pro? Cf William Gallas.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
He didn't get replaced. He was injured for a long period and during that time, Mert and Kos developed a very good partnership. It would have been silly for Wenger to break that up for the sake of playing Vermaelen.
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Yeah but he had a few shockers in some games as well from what I remember, so that also contributed to him losing his starting spot.
 
Typical United :lol:

After all the big talk about war chests, and signing the best players in the world....we kick it off with Arsenal's 3rd choice, injury prone, not very good defender. You couldn't make it up. I expect the whole summer to go like this. We're shopping from Tesco's thesedays, not Harrods.
 
Sam said:
Typical United :lol:

After all the big talk about war chests, and signing the best players in the world....we kick it off with Arsenal's 3rd choice, injury prone, not very good defender. You couldn't make it up. I expect the whole summer to go like this. We're shopping from Tesco's thesedays, not Harrods.
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Injury prone? He had one injury ravaged season and suddenly he's prone to injury? How about RVP then? He was injured a lot then he figured out the best way to train. Under Van Gaal it will be no different.

Not very good defender? I remember him being absolutely incredible for Arsenal the year before last. You don't get to be captain of your club if you're not "very good". He had a damaged season. See it as it is.

Typical CAF reaction :lol:
 
The Red Thinker said:
Injury prone? He had one injury ravaged season and suddenly he's prone to injury? How about RVP then? He was injured a lot then he figured out the best way to train. Under Van Gaal it will be no different.

Not very good defender? I remember him being absolutely incredible for Arsenal the year before last. You don't get to be captain of your club if you're not "very good". He had a damaged season. See it as it is.

Typical CAF reaction :lol:
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No, you really don't. You might remember him scoring some goals. You might remember him contributing to his teams attacks, but you don't remember him being a very good defender, because he never has been.
 
I've never rated him. Even when he was supposedly 'good' I thought he was overrated. Defensively he's very suspect.

Would be a poor signing. Even if it is just as cover.
 
With Jones and Smalling being injury prone we really need to aim for a better defensive signing than Vermealen.
 
Never really rated him but I am sure Van Gaal has his reasons.

What's worrying about the signing is that he is another one who is injury prone. We already have Smalling and Jones who have their fair share of knocks. We are interested Schweinstiger who's become slightly injury prone and Strootman who's coming of a bad injury.
 
He was a terrible partner for Kosicelny, that's for sure. Both of them too similar and likely to get caught upfield.

Might have looked better if he'd been partnered with sack de merde instead of Kos but injuries prevented that from ever happening.

He definitely has something about him, though. Can see why Van Gaal might be interested. Bit of a gamble, though.
 
The Red Thinker said:
Injury prone? He had one injury ravaged season and suddenly he's prone to injury? How about RVP then? He was injured a lot then he figured out the best way to train. Under Van Gaal it will be no different.

Not very good defender? I remember him being absolutely incredible for Arsenal the year before last. You don't get to be captain of your club if you're not "very good". He had a damaged season. See it as it is.

Typical CAF reaction :lol:
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Come off it! He's never been an incredible defender. He had a good first season, in which he scored lots of goals (which affected people's opinions of him). But he's always been suspect defensively. He actually reminds me a bit of Evans, good on the ball, decent defensively, but gets bullied by any sort of physicality.
 
Odd business - he started well and simply went to pieces after 6 months or so, a particular lowpoint being monstered by Bobby Zamora.
 
What the feck is going on here? Hardly a signing of intent is it?
 
Infuriating. I am very disappointed with how Evans, Jones, and Smalling have developed over the past two years, but Vermaelen is not an improvement on any of them. 28 years old and incredibly ordinary, there is no point to this signing, we need quality in central defence, not quantity.
 
Would be a good signing for depth. I'd use this season as the time to play Jones/Smalling consistently as centre-backs, either together or with Evans. CM and LB are bigger priorities than CB at the moment, and when played at CB Smalling and Jones have performed quite well overall, plus Evans is very good. If Smalling/Jones don't perform to the standard required this season then you'll be able to reinforce in the Summer of 2015, as you don't want more Andersons. It also helps that he can add a bit of leadership and experience to the side with a few leaving the squad or the club entirely.
 
Sam said:
Typical United :lol:

After all the big talk about war chests, and signing the best players in the world....we kick it off with Arsenal's 3rd choice, injury prone, not very good defender. You couldn't make it up. I expect the whole summer to go like this. We're shopping from Tesco's thesedays, not Harrods.
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I'm sure we have no money.

The war chest story are only bullshits.
 
Stunning amount of cynicism. I think he'll be a solid enough signing. Adds versatility and allows Keane a premier league loan. Hopefully United never have to play 3 of them at the same time, increasing the opportunities for injury. First choice should still be Evans-Smalling for me. Those 2 have proven they are more than capable together.
 
Could be a good signing if van Gaal gets the best out of him. At his best he was a very good defender at Arsenal and £10m doesn't seem like a very high price. Obviously he hasn't been at his best for a while and is somewhat injury prone hence the low fee but he should be good enough as a back up and may emerge as a first team regular if he picks up some form.
 
johnmufc said:
Infuriating. I am very disappointed with how Evans, Jones, and Smalling have developed over the past two years, but Vermaelen is not an improvement on any of them. 28 years old and incredibly ordinary, there is no point to this signing, we need quality in central defence, not quantity.
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::sonny:: said:
I'm sure we have no money.

The war chest story are only bullshits.
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Personally I was hoping for Hummels or Benetia as well but if LVG rates him, then he's good enough for me
 
@Lane
Boateng
Martinez
Dante
Badstuber

They also still have kirchhoff & are rumored to seal a deal with Garay.
 
Would rather stick with Evans, Smalling and Jones. Vermaelen is not a world class defender and he couldn't even get into Arsenal team. So why is Arsenal back up CB good enough for us?
 
MrEriksen said:
@Lane
Boateng
Martinez
Dante
Badstuber

They also still have kirchhoff & are rumored to seal a deal with Garay.
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If you are talking about Munich's CBs, you need to check your facts. Badstuber hardly played at all in the last two years while being injured. And that's not just another one injury, that the kind of injury that Bayern were pretty much sure he is not going to be involved much in 13-14 well beforehand. Martinez is a DM, can be used as a CB in similar manner to Carrick. While you actually forgot Van Buyten. So the Bayern is set up in exactly the way i described. One solid pair: Dante and Boateng. That play like 80% of the time. Then one cover that is somewaht worse in this position in Martinez and Van Buyten that is a old experienced deep cover that content to play 10-12 games a season. Something Jones, Smalling and Evans would not be open to really.
 
He is a solid defender, but isn't he injured every season? Do we need another injury-prone defender? That could end in a disaster with our luck.
 
At the severe risk of being labelled, ITK, his representatives were at the King Street offices of United's Legal representatives, today.
 
File under "prays this is a piece of magic by Van Gaal."

Certainly doesn't look like anything more than a squad signing for a centreback lineup full of squaddies.
 
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