Rumoured Arsenal target Jan Vertonghen is reported to have confirmed his preference of playing for our rivals.
Arsene has already signed one of his targets this summer in Lukas Podolski and there are reports indicating that a deal for Yann M’Vila isn’t far off. The third player that Arsenal has been heavily linked with is the Ajax skipper, but the following comments seem to imply he is going to push for a move to Spurs.
The Metro has these quotes from Vertonghen:
“I owe much to Ajax, I have always given my whole heart and soul for them. My appreciation for the club and the fans is great.
“It would be terrible if my departure would be a long and distorted situation as Ajax would keep asking for a great price “till the bone”. Of course I want Ajax to become financially better, but the amount Tottenham are willing to pay, maybe with a little bit extra, is very reasonable.
“In a year from now I could leave the club for free. I hope Ajax are aware of it as the situation of Maarten Stekelenburg’s transfer was very harsh. He only arrived at the end of pre-season at AS Roma. I want to flow in fluently, directly with the other Spurs players.
“Tottenham is a fantastic traditional club who play football in a way I like. Ajax was the perfect club for me, but Spurs will be very close in nearing that already. They buy young, eager and offensive-minded players.”
He is clearly trying to force a move, perhaps because he has heard that Ajax will hold out for more money. But there also no doubt that he wants to go to Redknapp’s side, and the Tottenham manager has already intimated his desire to buy Vertonghen.
People are saying that the reason behind Vertonghen’s choice is more playing time, which is probably partly true. At Arsenal, he would probably sit behind Koscielny and Vermaelen in the pecking order. In addition, Mertesacker brought a calming influence to our defence, so I (and many others) would put the German ahead of the Belgium international.
Vertonghen can also play in defensive midfield, but with the potential signing of M’Vila, the Ajax man wouldn’t get many chances at Arsenal in the centre of the pitch.
Spurs has a Gallas and Nelsen who are both nearing the end of their careers, and a regularly injured Ledley King. Signing Vertonghen would be a great move for them. We must also not forget that Spurs are now far more attractive in terms of transfers than they used to be. They have a good manager, some great players and have been pushing for Champions League football for a few years.
So there should be no hard feelings if Vertonghen does choose Spurs over us – it’s not indicative of a ‘power shift’ in London, nor that they have more money than us. It is likely that the choice is based on footballing reasons, and the fact that Wenger won’t enter a bidding war for a player that we don’t really need.
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With the amount of injuries our team gets, he would get ample playing time, but if he wants to join a team forever in our shadow, that lack of desire and ambition he is clearly stating, then let him, no great loss
Nice balanced article, would be great if both sets of fans were less derogatory about their rivals. It gets boring listening to the same rubbish.
FUCK SPURS
A good article based fact and reason not hate. Good stuff.
I dont get the Koscielny comment, he is rubbish and surely Vertonghen is better than all of your cbs. Ask the Ajax fans! You blatantly need him but he obviously has taste and will be joined with Eden Hazard at Tottenham Hotspur.
You are hilarious!. Firstly even Man City are squirming at the wages Hazard wants and as good as ‘Arry’s accountancy skills are, that means you have absolutely no chance. Secondly, I know Vertonghen is 95% an Arsenal player. Basing all this on quotes from the Metro means nothing. Don’t forget to come back here and gloat, if you can.
Yeh fair article and for once there seemed no biast in it at all.
I agree we need him more, Koz has been your best defender this year and Vermealan has never let you down.
Where as we are desperate, only Kaboul is up to standard so Vertonghen would start every game, the fact he plays LB for Belgium could be a reason Arsene is going for him, but I feel his best position is centre back
Who ever gets him will have a great player, all the Ajax fans feel is is superior to Thomas Vermealan and he just won the Dutch league player of the year which for a centre back is impressive and something Vermealan never done.
I rate Vermealan very highly so if he turns out to be of that standard I as a spurs fan will be very happy
He is very good but we have 3 very good CBs plus a future stalwart in Miquel. The problem at Arsenal is not abt quality defenders bt the system we use which def needs to be reviewed. If you compares ours with Man U apart from we got an overally better group of defenders bt we leak more goals, that must be worked on. I believe Miquel is good enough to compeete for the first team. Arsene also needs to give more game time to Coquelin, Frimpong and Jenkinson. They have potential but wasting on the bench. The arguement that they are young holds no water coz everytime they play they proove to be equal or at times even better than the regulars. He only needs to manage the games they play per season.