All June long we heard that Manchester United were closing in on an £11 million deal with Arsenal to sign Belgium defender Thomas Vermaelen. He was supposed to be next; after Luke Shaw and Ander Herrera. And the deal was supposed to be struck once the Belgians were eliminated from the World Cup run, claimed the tabloids.
Well, United are still in, having firmed up their interest with a formal bid.
“Manchester United are part of the group [of bidders]. He could leave,” said Arsenal Manager Arsene Wenger.
Louis van Gaal is keen to bring in another centre-back to rotate with Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Jonny Evans in his preferred 3-5-2 formation. We’ve heard Vermaelen linked with a move to Napoli quite often this summer, but it looks like Old Trafford’s main competition to land him will come from Spain, not Italy.
According to the Daily Mail, United are ready to pay £15m to beat off competition from Barcelona.
United are understood to have had an initial bid of £6 million rejected but are ready to increase their offer after third parties revealed Vermaelen is keen to move to Manchester. And The Gunners’ defender as a potential replacement for the departed Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.
In the past, we heard that Arsenal negotiated terms for the potential move which would see Vermaelen join United with Nani in the deal, supposedly. And today, we’re getting more mixed messages. The Daily Star claims that Wenger would rather sell Vermaelen to a foreign club instead of a domestic side, while The Telegraph offers us this:
Thomas Vermaelen has verbally agreed a deal with United which would see him earn £100k per week. [telegraph]
— Man Utd News © (@SirAlexStand) August 7, 2014
We’ll see. This silly season is certainly heating up.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. He’s also a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, CBS, the History Channel and more. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)