Vermaelen to the Arsenal?

"Moving to Arsenal is the right path for me. It is a great sporting challenge and I will also be financially better off. I think everything is going to be okay."

- Thomas Vermaelen, maybe the first Arsenal signing of the year?

So it looks like Thomas Vermaelen is moving to the Arsenal. He's 23, the Ajax captain, and he plays both left back and centre back. He's going to cost about £11 million, and as usual, we're all slightly perplexed as to why we're going so hard after a guy with a glaringly obvious fault - he's a short bloke, our Tom Vermaelen.

With the monies in our hands, the general consensus seems to be that we can buy someone suitably awesome. Some people are whispering Zapata like he's the alliterative successor to a Persian sky god. Some others are saying Hagaaland (sic) is the go. Whoever or whatever we're wanting to fill our central defensive space, no one would've thought of Vermaelen.

But think back over the last few memorable transfers:

Arshavin - why did we buy a creative midfielder when we were crying out for a defensive one?

Nasri - why are we buying ANOTHER promising young creative midfielder, only to bung him on the wing?

Silvestre - why did we swap one inconsistent defender (Senderos) with a crap, over-the-hill, slow, crap, ex-Man Utd, crap defender who can play two positions poorly? And did I mention that he's mostly crap?

Sagna - why did we buy a right back when we've one in Eboue?

Now, some of these were good choices. Some were horrible. It's been a bit of a mixed bag by Le Boss, to the truthful. But whatever the case, we should be used to the idea that he doesn't do things the way we expect. He doesn't do things the conventional way.

But then again, no one knows like Arsene Knows.

Other news, this quote from Ivan Gazidis makes me angry:

"I think perspective is very important. You need to take a distance when you assess the season. This club has over 120 years of history and if you're looking at where we are and how we're doing at this period of our development you have to say it is one of the special times, one of the golden times. I hope we don't forget to appreciate that."

If you're taking the really long view, we should get on our knees and count our blessings. 120 years ago, transportation was limited to horses, paddle-steamers and steam trains. The telegraph was the cutting edge communication device. Penicillin hadn't been invented yet. The world hadn't thrown off the yoke of English imperialism.

So yes, there's a lot to be grateful for over the past 120 years. A lot of advances have been made, and we tend to take it all for granted. But that doesn't mean we should be grateful that a big club like the Arsenal manages to crawl into 4th place, after showing such absymal form in the middle of the year. We're better than that. We're the Arsenal.

What happened to Ivan "The Tiger" Gazidis, out to battle the ocean of sharks for our transfer prospects? Don't give up, Ivan. Fight for us. Use your claws. Use your teeth. Use your jungle camoflage in the murky ocean depths. You can do it, Ivan!