Vermaelen more likely to signal the end of Gallas than Toure

As if you didn't know, yesterday Arsenal signed Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax for approximately £10m.

Naturally, speculation is rife as to whether Vermaelen will merely complement the squad or come in as a straight replacement for Kolo Toure or William Gallas.

Well, seeing as Vermaelen is primarily a left-footed centre back, he is more likely to play left of centre, which is therefore more likely to signal the end of William Gallas career at Arsenal rather than Kolo Toure.

Gallas also prefers to play left of centre - as does Johan Djourou, meaning Arsenal now have three defenders whose primary position is left of centre.

As I mentioned several weeks ago, a straight swap; Vermaelen IN, Gallas OUT, would not impress me, in fact it would underwhelm me as Gallas is a far better defender than Vermaelen.

In fact, the Vermaelen signing does not impress me regardless.

The opinion of many Ajax fans is that Vermaelen is hardly irreplaceable and Arsenal have somewhat overpaid for the Belgian. Vermaelen often struggled in the centre of defence playing for Ajax last season, in fact he played in the heart of their defence throughout all of their heavy defeats including the 4-0 defeat at Sparta, 6-2 at PSV, 4-1 at Vitesse, 5-2 at Heerenveen.

Whilst it would be ridiculous to blame Vermaelen for those results, the fact is he was a mainstay performer for Ajax last season, and captain, of a team that conceded - in a relatively poor league - almost double the goals of AZ Alkmaar.

In the Premier League, Arsenal will play better teams than that virtually every week - and Vermaelen will face far superior players.

The overall consensus amongst the views of a number Ajax supporters I happened to read online seems to be that Vermaelen is not the quickest, has his fair share of bad games, but could well blossom under a more experienced coach than Van Basten. Problem being of course that Wenger does not have a good track record of either buying or coaching defenders.

I certainly don't see Vermaelen, or any defender, improving considerably under Wenger's stewardship unless something fundamental is changed within the coaching staff and on the training ground.

Leafing through the records, bar Kolo Toure, Wenger's best defensive signings were all top quality before they came to the club: Sagna, Campbell, Gallas, Lauren (arguably).

When Wenger has brought through youngsters, or unknowns, they have mostly failed to perform or settle: Upson, Stepanovs, Cygan, Senderos, Hoyte, Eboue.

For me, the jury is still very much out on Clichy, Traore, Song, Gibbs, and Djourou.  Decent youngsters no doubt, but if you're going for the big prizes they'll all cost you defensively - and let's face it, they have done. The lesson of last season is that it's abundantly clear that Arsenal need more than just potential if they want to seriously compete for the Premier League or win the Champions League.

Most Arsenal fans wanted a powerful, experienced centre-back to come straight into the team next season, but I fear that Vermaelen, at 23, is more of an experiment than the experience Arsenal require.

Yes, Arsenal desperately need a defender, and Arsenal have got one, but quality is more important than numbers, and you can be sure that Vermaelen will certainly have his work cut out when thrown into the Premier League deep end.

Still, there's plenty of time for Wenger to buy another defender, and no-one's left yet, but I won't pretend I'm not concerned following last summer's transfer les diabolique.

 
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