Thomas Vermaelen – Page 12 – Arsenal and Belgium Superstar

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

NEVILLE HIT FOR SEVEN

Barcelona’s recent 7-0 win over Valencia has received a lot of headlines especially given that it was a very poor result for new manager Gary Neville. The former Manchester United defender was recently appointed as the interim manager on a six-month contract.

Neville requested that he be judged at the end of his contract, but there are already a lot of calls for him to resign from his position. Neville has been in charge of Valencia for several weeks, but he is still searching for his first league win. Most of the successes that he has had have come in the Copa del Rey.

The recent result, however, is a huge blow to Neville’s aspirations of winning a title with Valencia this season. The 7-0 result in the first leg means that Valencia are certainly out of the running to win the trophy. The two teams were meeting each other in the semifinals of the competition with the winners being eligible to play against either Sevilla or Celta de Vigo. Luis Suarez was the star of the show after managing to score four.

Manager Luis Enrique, however, sympathised with the position of his counterpart at Valencia. Whilst Valencia languish towards the bottom of the table, Barca are riding high, and many are tipping them for European glory again – maybe it’s time for you too to take advantage of William Hill’s generous Champions League odds? Enrique played down the win.

Despite having played under Alex Ferguson who is regarded as one of the best managers in world football, it appears that Neville still has a long way to go.

“Valencia are going through a very difficult situation. It isn’t easy for anyone up against a team like us. Valencia’s situation is not pleasant, not even for us. I do not like to see opponents in this situation. We’re just doing our job. Every situation has to change eventually and I am sure they will get out of this because it is only a sporting problem,” said Enrique. Valencia are fast slipping down the league table as a result of the winless run under Neville.

ENRIQUE RELIES ON VERMAELEN

Rumours about an immediate departure from the Camp Nou for defender Thomas Vermaelen may be put on hold for the time being after manager Luis Enrique praised the player for his professional attitude. The former Arsenal defender has been a major disappointment for Barcelona since his £ 16 million move from the Premier League.

He was expected to be the replacement for Carlos Puyol when he moved to Barcelona, but Vermaelen has been blighted by numerous injuries the last two years. He has been able to make less than 20 appearances during this period. Even though Barcelona have lifted quite a lot of trophies in these two years, Vermaelen has never been a clear part of any. Continue reading ENRIQUE RELIES ON VERMAELEN

Thomas Vermaelen says that he is very much looking forward to be part of major competitions

After going through an injury hell in the last 24 months, Barcelona defender Thomas Vermaelen says that he is very much looking forward to be part of major competitions.

Immediately after joining for £ 16 million from Arsenal, the Belgian international found himself consistently on the sidelines due to recurrences of various injury problems. It has been only in the last few months that he has been featuring regularly for club and country. The defender has easily lost two years of his productive footballing career and he intends to make the best out of the extended absence from the pitch.

Due to the continued absence, manager Luis Enrique has gone for other options on the pitch. It will be up to Vermaelen to convince the manager that he is the right man to partner with Gerard Pique. The injury record of the defender has to improve a lot as well as his form. The impressive form of the Catalan club will make it doubly hard forVermaelen to return to the first-team, but he remains confident of doing so. At the moment, the 30-year-old is just happy to be part of the squad for the Club World Cup. Barcelona are overwhelming favourites to lift yet another title but it will beVermaelen’s first proper success with the Spanish club. Continue reading Thomas Vermaelen says that he is very much looking forward to be part of major competitions

Thierry Henry is of the opinion that the club still needs to bring can as much as for top players

Arsenal legend Thierry Henry is of the opinion that the club still needs to bring can as much as for top players in order to compete with the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City.

Arsenal have brought in Petr Cech for £ 11 million as their only major signing of the summer. Goalkeeper position was seen as an important area of concern during the summer transfer window and many fans have been happy with this new signing.Cech has been the first choice at Chelsea for more than a decade and he is still a world-class goalkeeper.

However, Henry has recalled that Chelsea finished last season a whopping 12 points ahead of Arsenal and this gap is unlikely to be closed anytime soon if Cech remains the only major signing for the gunners in this transfer window. Olivier Giroud had a major role to play in Arsenal finishing third in the table, but the Frenchman missed a good portion of the first half due to injury.

In his absence, the club was not able to find any replacement goal scorer, in spite of being linked with plenty by the Transfer Rumours website. After they have sold Lukas Podolski, the situation has only worsened. Henry has identified a striker – amongst other positions – that need strengthening almost immediately. Continue reading Thierry Henry is of the opinion that the club still needs to bring can as much as for top players

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?