*Vermaelen: The Verminator

 

 

 

 

Julian Bennetts
TWO months into this season, Arsenal’s leading fanzine, The Gooner, had as their front cover a picture of Thomas Vermaelen as ‘The Verminator’, a play on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic film hero of the 1980’s. And it seems as if Vermaelen may well be made of steel after all, as it has been confirmed that the Belgian did not, as first feared, break his leg in Wednesday’s 0-0 draw at Aston Villa.
That is news Arsene Wenger will barely have dared to hope for, with the 24-year-old even being given an outside chance of making Sunday’s crucial game with Manchester United, a match which will go a long way towards determining whether Arsenal can win the Premier League this season.
Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the impact Vermaelen has had on the Arsenal side since his £10m move from Ajax in the summer, and the effect his absence would have had.
The 24-year-old was grabbing headlines for his goalscoring feats at the beginning of the season, but after a run of five goals in his first 11 games for the club, it has been his defending which has caught the eye. Strong in the air despite being 5’ 9” tall, his partnership with William Gallas has been the cornerstone of a more resilient Arsenal side.
That is in stark contrast to last season, where Gallas’s very public falling out with Kolo Toure led to divisions not only in the dressing room but also on the pitch, as Manchester United so brutally exposed in the Champions League semi-final.
The left-footed Vermaelen has provided better balance, and until Wednesday the Belgian-Frenchman combination had played every minute of Arsenal’s Premier League campaign. And Arsenal’s reliance on that pairing has been made even more evident by the fact that Sol Campbell is the man who would have had to step into the breach.
The 35-year-old is a stop-gap, and looks noticeably heavier than he did during his last spell at the club. The last time Campbell started a League game, he was marking Morecambe’s Phil Jevons and Paul Mullin during his brief spell at Notts County. Keeping Wayne Rooney, a man who has scored 13 goals in his last 13 games, quiet on Sunday could demonstrate how far he has fallen from his peak.
And that is why Vermaelen’s recovery will be vital in Arsenal’s quest to win a title which they last claimed in 2004. Chelsea – with Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka back in tandem – await at Stamford Bridge a week after the United game, while Liverpool at home is three days after that. It was thought that Vermaelen was going to miss six weeks, which would also have ruled him out of games with Sunderland, Burnley and Stoke.
Having played three games since last May, Campbell would have been an accident waiting to happen. Now, Wenger’s defence has added steel.