Not Done Yet – One Centre Back Down

Thomas Vermaelen - The New Gunner
Thomas Vermaelen - The New Gunner

I seldom ever comment about signings but here’s some special mention for new boy Thomas Vermaelen. Honestly speaking I do not watch the Dutch Eredivisie and I have no first hand information about him but he looks decent. Strong in the air and has a good command of the box. Something that has been lacking since the departure of Adams and then later Campbell. It would be weird for a new signing who categorically is also our youngest first team centre back (I see him ahead of Djourou and Silvestre), to be commanding the area usually marshaled by Toure and Gallas. The big issue is that the two seniors do not really command and the defense turns to shambles because no one pulls the strings.

Straying away from the main point, this is another reason why it has always been better for captains to play near the backline. They get to see the play developing in front of them and can shout commands when necessary. The best position for a captain would be midfielder and due to the dominating nature that leadership requires, you tend to see tough tackling midfielders as ideal captains. Read Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane.

Anyways back to the defensive issue, I personally see Vermaelen (if he manages to adapt to the EPL and not do a Cygan) and Djourou as a pair for the future. Centre backs peak around 28 – 29 so these guys have about 5-7 years to go. Djourou is quality in his performances last season so let’s see if Thomas Vermaelen can bring in the commanding presence into the backline.

What is more pressing is a defensive midfielder. These chaps are deadly important to each team. United have a good selection of such players one of them being Hargreaves, Liverpool has BOTH Mascherano and Alonso. We used to have Gilberto and then for some retarded reason allowed Flamini to walk away with Gilberto when he was certainly ready to step into Gilberto’s boots. Diaby is more of a PV4 then anything likes to charge forward too often. Fans who said PV4 was an excellent DM should remember he was more of a box to box player than a DM. Petit / Gilberto did most of the donkey work for him. Denilson has been quietly doing the work this season but still needs a season or two to impress himself on the midfield. I tend to see Brazilians as technical players rather than those with grit and power anyways. Song seems to play better as a CB then a CDM.

So that’s the final hole we’ve got. Knowing Wenger, Thomas V could well be our last major signing this summer. We’ll probably get 2-3 young players in but that’s for the future future (probably after Wenger retires, you get what I mean). So if we do not buy Lorik Cana, Melo, etc, we have two options – Send Kolo Toure back to CDM (yes that was his original position before he got wengverted into a CB) or let Eboue play as CDM since that guy is begging for a first team place. Eboue to his credit is all grit and speed so he could do well in this area.

And for the love of all good things Wenger, we DO NOT need any more attacking midfielders. We could field a whole first XI of attacking mids if we wanted right now.