Arsenal’s Thomas Vermaelen is wanted by Mancehster United (Picture: AP)

Thomas Vermaelen has been heavily linked with a move to Manchester United this summer with many outlets, at various times, claiming that the deal was as close to being done as to be imminent.

Of course, no deal has yet been agreed and Barcelona have also been linked with a move for the Arsenal captain.

Over the weekend it was being claimed that Arsenal will sell the Belgian to Barcelona for £10m, flat-out refusing to allow him to go to Manchester United to help strengthen one of their rivals. If this is true, it marks yet another watershed moment in this development of Arsenal Football Club.




For the past 10 years Arsenal’s main goal has to be to remain as competitive as possible on the pitch while paying down the stadium debt and waiting for commercial deals to be renewed which would free up cash. During that time they were forced to sell a number of top players who didn’t care to be patient.

Robin van Persie’s transfer to Manchester United did, of course, anger fans immensely. Not solely because he went to United, although that didn’t help matters in the slightest, but because of the statement he issued before he left which was engineered to turns the fans against the club.

Arsenal were able to get well over £20m for a player with one year left on his contract who was fast approaching the magic-30 mark and who had a track record of injuries longer than either of his fibreglass legs.

If you put aside tribal loyalties, that’s very good business but it also demonstrated the situation the club were in – where they couldn’t afford to turn down that sort of money.

Now, it is no longer necessary to sell players nor simply allow them to join whichever club they desire. Arsenal can afford to keep Vermaelen for another year and let him leave for free in the summer or they can insist that he leaves the country if he wants to play regularly this season.

Of course, with it all being paper talk at this point it’s hard to tell how true these claims are, but I sincerely hope they are. It would be yet another statement from Arsenal that they are back and ready to start taking control of things once again.

It can’t come soon enough.

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