Who Are You?: Thomas Vermaelen

By: Martin | June 8th, 2009

I know I’m a little late to the party on this–I was out of town all weekend and not really online very much. But as has been mentioned in the comments section and as travis mentioned yesterday, there are quite a lot of reports that Arsenal has had a bid accepted for Ajax defender Thomas Vermaelen. I could provide links, but honestly, it’s everywhere on the internet, if you google “Vermaelen Arsenal” you’ll see loads of stories on the prospective transfer.

Most of this summer transfer stuff is made up by the media, but given how many stories have been posted on this, the fact that Vermaelen himself has come out and said it’s probably going to happen, and no denials from Arsenal, I think it’s fair to say that there’s probably something to it. I would also emphasize that this doesn’t mean that Vermaelen will be joining us soon, if at all. It’s possible that it could happen within the next couple of days, but remember how much time elapsed between us agreeing a fee with Marseille and actually signing Samir Nasri last summer. It could take weeks or months for us to agree with Vermaelen on a contract.

I thought it might be useful, though, to just talk about Vermaelen. If you’re like me, you hadn’t even really heard of this guy until about a week ago. So who is he?

Well, the basics. Vermaelen is Belgian, is just 23, and stands 5′11. He has played basically his entire senior career with Dutch powerhouse Ajax, and has been a regular the last couple of seasons. Beyond that…I don’t really know. Unlike strikers or playmakers, I don’t think there are any stats that can measure quite how good a defender is. In terms of team stats, Ajax has given up quite a few goals over the last couple of seasons, and could hardly be classified as watertight at the back. At his height, Vermaelen certainly doesn’t fit the mold of a big, physical defender with an aerial presence, which I think is really what we need.

Still, while Ajax isn’t nearly the club it was 15 years ago, they still play a very high level of football, and it’s impressive that Vermaelen was able to play so much at such a young age for the club. While it isn’t quite the same, having experience playing in domestic cups, top of the table battles, and European knockout competition will be good preparation for the young man should he in fact play at the Emirates next season. Most impressive to me, though, is the fact that Vermaelen was Ajax’s captain last season, a season in which he turned 22. The club must think quite highly of him to give the young man such a leadership role–as we’ve seen with Cesc, I think it takes a lot of both character and talent to appoint someone so young to lead your team.

I’ll go ahead and give my usual caveat about how I’m not a scout. And I’ve never seen this guy play. So I have no idea about whether or not he’ll be a good player for us or not. Anyone who tells you otherwise is almost certainly lying.

So my take on this transfer, which now looks pretty likely to go through, is simply this. I would have preferred a more physically imposing defender, because, as I’ve written ad nauseum in this space, I think we can really use that kind of player to pair with Gallas and/or Toure, smaller guys who use pace and positioning to defend. Vermaelen seems like a similar player to those two. However, this guy’s track record really does seem to mark him as a very promising young player entering his prime, and the kind of player who has earned the respect of his older teammates. So he will hopefully end being a good player for us.

If nothing else, I think this is encouraging in that it’s pretty definitive proof that Arsene Wenger really is going out and spending some money, and specifically spending some money on a center back, which I think everyone will agree was our squad’s single biggest weakness last year. Wenger took a lot of flack near the end of the season for saying there wasn’t that much difference between us and United. But the fact is that the statement wasn’t that ludicrous. In the league, United scored 68 goals. We also scored 68 goals. While they beat us in both legs of the Champions League semifinal, we beat them at the Emirates in the league, and got a draw (in a game in which we outplayed them) at Old Trafford near the end of the season.

The big difference between the sides, and between us and the other teams that finished ahead of us, is defense. They only gave up 24 goals, as did Chelsea. Liverpool only gave up 27. We gave up 37. And while our midfield didn’t always do a great job of providing the back with cover, I think Song is coming into his own and up to the task next year if he can stay healthy. So I think we have to look at center back. Manchester United have Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic. Chelsea have John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho. Liverpool have Jamie Carragher and Martin Skrtel/Daniel Agger. At the end of the year, we were pairing Kolo Toure and either Alex Song or Mikeal Silvestre. I think it’s fairly easy to see where the problem is. If we can add another top quality defender or two, I really think Arsenal can be right there in the mix next season.

Hopefully, if Vermaelen does eventually sign with Arsenal, he fits that description. For all the praise rightfully given Arsene Wenger for being to identify and develop young talent, his track record with defensive players has always been somewhat mixed. The backline stalwarts of Wenger’s early Arsenal teams (Tony Adams, Martin Keown, etc.) were already with the club when Wenger arrived, and some of the more successful additions to the later teams (like Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure) are rumored to be guys that David Dein really discovered and brought in. For this reason, I think this is a big offseason for Arsene–he’s put together the core of a team that is good enough to win trophies, but he’s got a backline not up to the task. He knows he has to improve this, and he has money to go out and do it. To put it simply, there aren’t any excuses for Arsenal not to improve their defense next year–”we’re still young and developing” and “we don’t have any money” are not going to cut it next year. But for what it’s worth, here’s hoping that Arsene is right about Vermaelen, and we won’t have to use any excuses next year.