Featured Articles – Page 3 – Thomas Vermaelen

Thomas Vermaelen has been one of the biggest disappointments for Barcelona

Thomas Vermaelen has been one of the biggest disappointments for Barcelona ever since the Belgian international came to the club in 2014.

He arrived for a reasonably high transfer fee of €15 million, but he has managed only 21 appearances in all competitions for the club in the last two years. More worryingly, the bulk of these appearances came in the current campaign with Vermaelen spending almost the entire 2014-15 season on the sidelines. He does not seem to be completely free from injuries, as he has once again spent the last few weeks on the sidelines.

Barcelona, though, have been boosted by the potential return of the 30-year-old for the final la Liga match of the campaign.The return of Vermaelen is more important for the Belgian national team, who have been desperately unlucky with regard to injuries to their major centre backs. Only recently, the national team has received a setback in form of Vincent Kompany, who will definitely miss the Euro 2016 after yet another recurring injury. Vermaelen may be able to pick up the la Liga winner’s medal by virtue of his limited appearances, but he will be disappointed with the season nonetheless. The 30-year-old has vowed to fight on for his place at Barcelona despite his issues. Continue reading Thomas Vermaelen has been one of the biggest disappointments for Barcelona

Is Barcelona planning to offload Vermaelen during the summer?

Ever since Thomas Vermaelen joined Barcelona on August of 2014, the Belgian defender has spent the majority of the time either on the sidelines or out of the pitch all-together due to injury.

Vermaelen has made less than 15 appearances for Barcelona and it’s now being rumored that the Spanish club is prepared to sell him during the summer transfer window. The 30 year old defender still has 3 more years left on his contract with Barcelona but after having gone through such a difficult start to his career in Camp Nou, his time with the team of Luis Enrique might be over as he is being linked with different clubs.

One of the clubs that is being linked with Thomas Vermaelen is Juventus as the Italian club is eyeing the veteran defender as a backup player that they can sign in case they aren’t able to secure the services of Medhi Benatia.

Medhi Benatia is a 29 year old defender who performs with Bayern Munich and he has entered the watch-list of Juventus, the Italian club is expected to launch an offer for the defender but if they aren’t able to sign him in the summer then Thomas Vermaelen will turn into an alternative for Juventus. Continue reading Is Barcelona planning to offload Vermaelen during the summer?

Vermaelen talks about what makes Barcelona so dominant

Thomas Vermaelen underwent surgery in December of 2014 as he wanted to resolve his repetitive hamstring injuries and the Belgian appears to be fully fit with no injuries but even after managing to recover from his string of physical problems, he is struggling to land a spot in the starting lineup of Barcelona’s Luis Enrique.

The Belgian is mostly being utilized as a substitute player with limited playing time. Even though Vermaelen is clearly not one of the main stars of Barcelona, the experienced defender has played and trained enough with the Spanish club that he knows what are a few of the things that makes his team so strong and dominant in the world of football and Vermaelen said: ‘’The first thing I noticed here was the intensity of the pressing. The pressure is on straight away when we lose the ball. We do a lot of positioning games, focusing on getting the ball back. The pressure the players put on you is incredible, you have no time on the ball. We always do it at the start of training, it doesn’t only warm you up but it’s a training session in itself, you try to keep the ball in possession and make the guys in the middle do the pressing.’’ Continue reading Vermaelen talks about what makes Barcelona so dominant

Can Arsenal resurrect their Champions League campaign?

You would have felt confident upon looking at who the Champions League group stage draw had pitted Arsenal again, but although there is no such thing as easy games in football, the Gunners have made a real mess of what should have been a safe progression to the knock-out phases. Back-to-back defeats against Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos have left us with a mountain to climb, especially when you consider Arsene Wenger has to prepare his team for a double-header against the formidable force of Bayern Munich.

Pep Guardiola’s side appear more ruthless than ever before, with Robert Lewandowski’s astonishing goal-scoring form for club and country, including five in just nine minutes in Bayern’s 5-1 rout of Wolfsburg, making him Europe’s leading striker. We should try hard not to take a downbeat attitude into the first meeting at the Emirates, but with Arsenal’s European hopes hanging by a thread, it could require a monumental effort to overturn the Bundesliga champions in our own back yard. Continue reading Can Arsenal resurrect their Champions League campaign?

Michael Platini plays a cruel joke on Barcelona’s Thomas Vermaelen

Even though Thomas Vermaelen did not play a single match or a single minute of European football in the previous season, the Belgium defender was still awarded with a Champions League medal.

Vermaelen was signed by Barcelona for a transfer fee of €15 million on August of 2014 but the defender still hasn’t proved his worth to the Spanish club as Vermaelen has been plagued with a number of injuries that have forced him to stay out of action for the majority of the season.

It doesn’t look like Barcelona has needed Vermaelen to be in form as the Spanish club has still managed to win all the major trophies that they competed on including: La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League.

Vermaelen did not an important role in Barcelona’s treble but the Belgium player was still given a taste of success as he received medals of the Copa del Rey, La Liga and Champions League and after searching around football websites, Vermaelen is recognized as a holder of these pieces of silverware despite being absent from almost all of them. Continue reading Michael Platini plays a cruel joke on Barcelona’s Thomas Vermaelen

Barcelona not concerned about Thomas Signing

Barcelona have stated that they are not worried about the fact that summer signing Thomas Vermaelen has not been able to feature in a single match for the club so far. The Belgian international was seen as the popular replacement for Carlos Puyol, who retired at the end of last season.

Vermaelen may not have been an Arsenal first-team regular for the last 12 months, but he has undeniable quality that propelled him to the position of being one of the top defenders in the Premier League upon his £ 10 million arrival from Ajax.

The 29-year-old has not been able to make a start for his new club, Barcelona. However, this does not put him in a difficult mental state. This is largely because Barcelona appear to have convinced Vermaelen that he remains an integral part of the team despite his continued absence. The club’s sporting director Andoni Zubizaretta has revealed that Barcelona were aware that the player had a fair bit of injury problems even before signing for the club. Hence, he is confident that the Belgian international will be ready to play top-level football sooner rather than later. Continue reading Barcelona not concerned about Thomas Signing

Luis Enrique wont criticize for his Players

Barcelona manager Luis Enrique says that he cannot criticise the performance put in by his players in the recent 3-1 win over Atletico Madrid. This was a must win match for his team given that they needed to recover from the 1-0 defeat against Real Sociedad in the previous league match.

The victory was an essential in order to keep in touch with Real Madrid. Barcelona failed to take advantage of Madrid losing their last league match, but there were no repeats this time around. Despite playing against a very confident Atletico Madrid team who are defending the title, Barcelona dominated the match from start to finish.

The mouth-watering combination of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar were once again paired up front. Continue reading Luis Enrique wont criticize for his Players

Thierry Henry quits from Football

Thierry Henry finally called it a day after entertaining the whole world with his magical soccer skills for a period of almost two decades.

The Frenchman would now make his way to England where he would be working as an analyst for the official broadcaster of the Premier League.

Henry must be really satisfied with his achievements as a player. There would hardly have been anything that he did not do on the football pitch. Any young player coming up would dream to have a career like him.

Henry used to intimidate the opposition back line with his presence especially in the in the late years of the last decade when he was in his prime playing for the Gunners.

And, the thing which separates Henry from some of the other great footballers is that he has left football on a high.

There have been some greats in the past who continued their career until they hit the rock bottom, but, not Henry.

Whichever club Henry went to, he happened to be successful. Yes, a few months that he spent at Juventus in 1999, that might not be his best, but, if that is barred, he served each and every club, that he was a part of, magnificently well.

Most of Henry’s success came during his stay at the Emirates Stadium. The French legend shook the net 228 times in different tournaments for Arsenal and to date; there is nobody who has scored more goals than that in the Gunners’ shirt.

Henry had great careers at Barcelona and New York Red Bulls too, but, he would be remembered by the Football fraternity as an Arsenal legend.

Henry also played more than 100 matches for Les Blues. His last international appearance was in 2010 versus South Africa.

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