Catalan daily Sport say that Thomas Vermaelen has an offer to return to Arsenal this summer, but the chances of the Belgian returning are incredibly slim.
Last month they ran a story that linked the former Arsenal captain with a move West Ham, as Barcelona are happy to let him go after an underwhelming period at the Camp Nou since his £15m move from Arsenal in 2014.
He’s been injured a lot and was never able to force his way into regular first team contention. The British press then picked up the story and added Arsenal to the list of potential suitors. We were never mentioned in the original piece.
Now Sport appear to have used those links to suggest Vermaelen can choose between us and the Hammers if he decides he wants to leave La Liga.
Arsenal are in the market for an experienced central defender, and Vermaelen is certainly that, but his injury record and the fact that Arsene Wenger lost faith in him well before he was sold means that this story earns a full 10 on the Poo-o-Meter.
Gave it a super sloppy 10. He can’t stay fit, weak mentally and doesn’t partner well with Kos. His Arsenal career started off so well it got me very excited, but the injuries and sloppy decisions became too much
Weak mentally? I would want him back if mental strength was the most important criteria.
I’d take Pascal Cygan And Silvestre.
I always liked Thomas, but this doesn’t seem worth another go. Our club doctors need a rest!
Rumours are that Ashley Williams is moving for £10m. What do people think? I’d be up for that, I reckon he could do us for 2 years while Chambers and Holding develop.
I’d take Stepanovs at this point lol
No. Just no.
Williams is already going to Everton. In the meantime we’re waiting for the next press conference where we’re told quality defenders, like attackers are hard to find…
Shouldn’t we able to steal a signing from under Everton’s nose though? There’s no need to be nice!
As a Welshman, it’s been a big surprise that no big clubs have ever made a serious attempt to sign Williams. He’d make a fantastic captain, is experienced, and an excellent old-school ‘no nonsense’ defender who has a very good range of passing too. I’ve always thought he’d really fit the bill at Arsenal as he has both the footballing and leadership qualities. I’d still take him now. Even though he’s 31 he still has a few years left in him and our squad needs proper leaders really badly. Can’t see Arsene buying an outfield player over 30 though, or… Read more »
At that age, you go to the club that offers you the longest contract. I doubt that club would be Arsenal.
I’d like Williams but Wenger doesn’t seem to know him……
While I would love for us to get a Shkodran Mustafi, I don’t think Wenger’s gonna spend 25 mill on him if he’s planning on getting both Mahrez and Lacazette seeing we already spent 30 million on Xhaka (all worth it). I for one wouldn’t mind an experienced cheaper CB (not necessarily Ashley Williams but someone in his mould) for around 10 million if and only if it means we get both Mahrez and Lacazette. Would love to hear other people’s thoughts on this.
Would be shocked if we sign two forward players although we need a wide option and a striker
although we would all love that idea we also know there is no way we’re going to get them both. specialy the way Wenger believes in likes of Walcott or Chamberlain.
Williams would be a great addition, he is a warrior… Always seem to play well against us quality sold CB..
Sign him now
No thank you. I’ve just remembered The Dutch Skunk’s opener at Old Trafford.
Heavy poop, but not beyond the realms of possibility. Wenger has form with resigning experienced defenders…Sol Campbell for one
Comes back, takes over the arm band, hamstring explodes, jointly lifts EPL trophy with BFG (both in track suits)
A full 10 spurs for this spurious story!
On an unrelated issue. Who else laughed as I did at the news that Alex Song and Barcunts have mutually decided to terminate the former’s contracts? How does Wenger manage to play these guys so masterfully?
At the risk of sounding like a moron. What’s going on at Arsenal? Are they broke still? Are the rumours of lots of money just rumours? Why are we so cheap?
Not a moron at all, lord knows what is going on at the club. All I can say is it feels pretty disfunctional at the moment. The mixed messages and the lack of transfer activity makes me think there is something unhealthy behind it. There was a fundamental breakdown between the fans and the management at the club last season, and the club have done nothing to rectify it. I’m not saying spending £70 million on a player will fix it, but it does say to the fans we know what you want, we want the same, and we’re going… Read more »
Of course I’m not in the know but it just seems that while we ask nicely for the selling price of a player and then try to haggle our down to how much we feel a player is worth, other big teams don’t ask, add 5 to 10 million to whatever a player is worth and get them signed. Frustrating…
This is most definitely paper bullshit drummed up by a catalan mouthpiece, probably because they’re pissed off WW took them to the cleaners on the transfer fee, as he’s played a handful of games for them
Do you mean the Barca team got taken here to butter them up?
http://www.wwlondon.do.uk
our calls the club a “business brand” and our chief calls the game “soccer”. thats what is going on in couple of lines.
our owner*
Arseblog, two suggestions on the poopometer. Firstly, could you do the Readers one to one decimal place – there is a big difference between 8.51 and 9.49 though they will both register as a 9. Secondly, there is a behavioural science thing called ‘anchoring’ – by giving your number everyone else sees it and stays around the same number when they do theirs, they are anchored to yours (you also see the same phenomenon with player ratings, they stay close to yours). Would you consider giving your later in the day or not at all, as a trial to see… Read more »
The poopometre is fine, don’t mess with our poo
Charlie, I like your suggestions. One way to avoid the problem of anchoring is to only show Arseblog’s rating once you’ve pooped yourself.
The poop-o-meter is a really cool tool, and these suggestions are in no way meant as critique. Just some random thoughts to make it a bit more scientific…
They are suggestions to improve something pretty good already. The first is a minor but useful tweak.
Agreed on not viewing Arseblog’s rating first, though it is difficult to avoid as it is just next to the readers’ one. Plus most readers won’t be doing this, so the readers’ figure will still be heavily anchored to the one given by Arseblog.
Perhaps a change in page layout would be better – we have to fill in the readers’ first, then scroll down to Arseblog’s to compare?
This story got me stuck in the toilet
I wouldn’t mind Ashley Williams at Arsenal either. Its not like he is going to be first choice, maybe thats the reason he is not interested either. Mustafi was a no-goer for me from the beginning. Why would we go for him. Right now the tallest defender we have is Koscienly (except BFG) and Mustafi is shorter than Kos. We need more height in team to be better at defending set pieces. Thats why i am very sure Arsenal won’t sign Mustafi for 25-30m, If they were looking for a defender at this range they could have signed Koulibaly by… Read more »
mm, personally I think Williams is most definitely a good enough player to displace Mertesacker as first choice with Koscielny. I love Per, but I think Williams is absolutely fantastic, and seems confident enough in his own ability to fancy a shot at it at least. I can’t see any reason why if we went in with £10/12m he wouldn’t jump ship from the Everton deal. That said, I’d rather go in with £15m for Virgil van Dijk. Has everything I would’ve thought Arsene would want in a centre back.
Just realised they paid £13m for him, so would presumably need to be nearer £20m to tempt them, but the point still stands at that price. And I know he signed a new deal in May but I’m fairly sure that was prior to Koeman leaving, and we really should be capable of enticing a Southampton player to join anyway.
Why would Southampton sell him for anything less than 30m? They even sold Lovern for 20m+
Only problem is Napoli are only selling Koulibaly for a lot more than 25m that Mustafi would cost.
Well my argument was not well implied i guess. I meant if we are willing to shop in 25-30m bracket for a defender we could also few steps further if someone like Koulibaly is available. He may cost 35m, but he could sort our defense out.
This one is a porcelain stainer.
Get the toilet duck out.
I would not mind seeing Laurent Blanc after Arsène leaves.
Transfer wise, i say buy the Dutch skunk for 5million and make him play with the U19.
Otherwise no clue whatsoever….
the amount of players linked with Afc this summer is ridiculous, every day more names are added. Seems like any random website or blogger can speculate on a possible signing and it’s all over the internet. It wouldn’t be a surprise if no-one else arrives before September.
It’s easy to link players when we have two large holes that need filling. That sounds a bit rude.
What about this striker merry-go-round: Lukaku to Chelsea, Costa to Atletico, Griezmann to… Arsenal. Would be absolutely amazing (though maybe a tad unrealistic). Atletico have spent a fair share though and only Vietto has left and that was on a loan.
I’ll absolutely take him…If that’s the sacrifice we need to get both Lacazzete and Mahrez.
i like the verminator but unfortunately he lost form and his niggling injuries put an end to what could have been a great career for him in Arsenal.
this is a poo you would look back lovingly for a good 28 secs before deciding to flush it down.
Being a gunner is just depressing as fuck during transfer windows. I also feel sorry for arseblog having to report on these sorry stories!
This would be even worse than getting Johnny Evans. Hope Wenger gives us some good news this week, at least ONE quality signing please…..
Haha – not enough poops for this one!
You all know that since we’ve given this story a total pebble dashing it is now a certainty to take place, right?
I’d rather re-sign Squillaci for no apparent reason whatsoever!
Barcelona, where careers go to die. Even when players know they will just be backup and fringe players, they still leave a key role in a other big club to carry water for MSN.
So true. Money is never enough for some of these brainless ball-kickers
what next? Van Persie on loan?
You look at so many players that have left Arsenal in the last 5-6 (and longer) years for what they thought were greener pastures and how many have seen their careers take a dive vs rise. There is Vermaelen, Hleb and Song that went to Barcelona and none did anything there. Van Persie had the one good year at Man U and is now bouncing around. Sagna and Nasri had mixed success at City (Nasri early, not now, Sagna not early, but playing more now). Flamini didn’t do much at AC Milan and then you can look at Toure and… Read more »
No way as a back up either! He’s not only not good enough but constantly injured. I’d rather have that former man U reject than this guy again.
Since Diaby’s days, the only one who really close to to him is Verminator.
I will rather gamble on Holding to have a breakthrough season as backup than to have him with a breakdown season. Harsh … But true
I hope this message goes through to Arsene. Why arent you working on a deal with roma for manolas-szczesny? They want wojciech. We should want manolas. Lets trade. Give us manolas for a good price and we loan you wojciech and pay his wages. We have the money to do so, ivan.
Thats all Arsene. Now im just gonna give your random last names of people ive seen on television: cavani, icardi, lukaku, sturridge, aubemeyang, morata, mandzukic, delofeu, mahrez, zaza, dybala and bendtner. “Super quality” is gonna make us better.
Sincerely, Pavlos
Yawn!!! Still no signing of a defender, right winger or striker!!!
After Arseblog’s big build up of the man when he firstn joined us I was hoping for a monster of a defender, but sadly it never really happened.
Not so much the cold dead eyes of a killer. More the cold dead eyes of a cod.
Makes me sad thinking back to all those moments of “Oh bugger”
I like Thomas alot, but he’s a piss poor defender and how he ended up at Barcelona is frankly baffling. Unfortunately this story has wenger written all over it. Cheap and nasty.
Argh. Come on Wenger, just spend the cash. We have many good players, but can you see this squad challenging for more than 4th place right now?
I’m not in favour of re-signing TV personally, but some of the comments here are derisory to a player that always gave his all. ‘Piss poor defending’? In his debut season he was one of the best centre halves in Europe. Injuries caused severe disruption to form and the emergence of Koscielny as our dominant centre half in his absence also hurt – they never could play together as they both loved to step up and make the early tackle/interception that meant someone needed to cover. Taking that away from Verminator would impinge on his effectiveness. As for comments Pertaining… Read more »
If this is true or not, do we really need one?then risk it, splash it, spend it or even beg for it…..plz bring it for the last time “KULABALY” to emerits!!! That would be the singing of the seasons and a wish come true to me as a gooner for 15 yrs now.
Is it just me or does the new poop emoji look like a smiling Donald Trump?
Holding played every minute of both games here in California. He looked very solid in both games. Contrary to what Andrew and James said on Arsecast Extra this week, I’d place him currently third in line behind Kos and Gabriel. Ahead of Chambers. And I would be at all surprised if Arsene is thinking about him as a potential solution to the Per injury. I’m not saying that’s why I would of and I hope we go buy Mustafi. But Arsene would have been pleased with the 180 mins he saw. I would take Mahrez and Holding over Two rNdom… Read more »
As a defender no. He always played up front anyway. Sign him up. Striker done. He’s learnt loadsa shit from MSN. Reverse Dion Dublin. New number 9. Yay.
Should’ve signed Kolo Toure when we had the chance!