Seems heavily in doubt

Arsenal captain Thomas Vermaelen has agreed a deal in principle to join Manchester United this summer.

United must now agree a fee with Arsenal after the World Cup, but Vermaelen hopes to move to Old Trafford and is preparing to leave the Emirates.

Central defender Vermaelen only has one year remaining on his Arsenal contract and has found himself pushed out of manager Arsene Wenger’s first-choice team by Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker.
New United manager Louis van Gaal is desperate to strengthen United’s defence and believes Vermaelen can find his best form under him.
The 28-year-old has been at Arsenal for five years after signing from Dutch club Ajax. He got off to a superb start with the Gunners, but injuries curtailed his progress.

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Vermaelen earns around £70,000-a-week and it is understood he has verbally agreed a deal with United that would see him pocket around £100,000-a-week.

Arsenal cannot expect to receive more than £10million for Vermaelen with only a year remaining on his contract.

Vermaelen is currently with the Belgium squad in Brazil for the World Cup, but wants his future sorted out as quickly as possible once the tournament ends.

He shares the same agent as Robin van Persie and that is understood to have been key to United’s interest.

Arsenal have been preparing for the possible departure of Vermaelen by lining up a number of defensive targets including Steven Caulker and Virgil van Dijk.

Although Vermaelen is not a first-team starter for Arsenal any more, his departure to United would be another blow for Wenger after losing Bacary Sagna to Manchester City.

Club already needs a good rb to replace Sagna plus a back-up GK to remain status quo. Thoughts?

It's better to let him go on a free if it's 5-10m because the club already dithers in getting players in. Don't need another distraction while we pursue additions rather than replacements in the squad.

Hmm. Well he's not first choice so I'm not going to cry about it.

We could make United sweat on the deal if we had the cojones.

But if there's a CB out there and we can get 5-10m for Vermaelen we should take the deal. If this is where his head is at he doesn't have a bright Arsenal future.

You can't deny that there is one element in this story which might be true - Verms could be on his way, because he wants more playing time. That he'll move to ManUre is something I doubt though, unless van Chaaal is an admirer of his, which I'm not aware of.

I don't see why we should sell him cheaply, unless we get a very good offer in I'd make him see out his contract. That clearly won't happen knowing our club though....

invisibleman18 wrote:

Surely Wenger can't sell our captain to United again can he?

Because?

The necessary shopping list for a title-challenging squad seems to be growing. At best, can only imagine us making 3 proper signings (£10m-£15m) and there are more than 3 positions we need to fix before we get to the CBs.

JazzG wrote:

I don't see why we should sell him cheaply, unless we get a very good offer in I'd make him see out his contract. That clearly won't happen knowing our club though....

The thing that's clear is that we have no incentive to sell him without having lined up a ready replacement. We should wait, see who's out there and let him go if there's a quality alternative.

It'll make letting Sagna leave look incredibly dumb if we end up with a third choice CB not as good in the position as Bac himself.

But let's not kid ourselves, Vermaelen has been a good not great proposition in the past two seasons. We can afford to let him leave if we're getting a body in.

Don't trust Wenger to sign the minimum numbers, let alone squad depth. Must keep whomever we can.

I hope Bellerin can do a job at RB with Jenko

A personal plea to Wenger from the United manager should be enough to see our captain leave. We still need a right back and possibly a fourth center back. Can't sell now.

Doesn't matter that we don't rate him or want him, the club can't sell him to United or any English club. Enough is enough. Arsenal are becoming a joke.

Hope he stays.

Good backup and I don't want to have to add a CB to our shopping list. We won't get everything we need as it is.

We were already a CB short last season. Worse now that Sagna has left.

Even if we sell TV to a European club, which would be acceptable, we'd still need to buy 2 CBs for a complete squad.

I'd be fine with this if it wasn't a PL team. The amount of former Arsenal players that could play against us next season is a joke.

Don't really buy the link, he wouldn't be guaranteed to get games there and why swap one bench for another

£10m would be great money for him. One year left on his contract for a back up player.

People are becoming far too paranoid about selling players within the league too. Of course we shouldn't sell our best players to our rivals but selling our cast offs is no big deal. Letting United have Vermaelen won't make them better than us because he's not good enough to start for us.

El Genio de Oviedo wrote:

Don't really buy the link, he wouldn't be guaranteed to get games there and why swap one bench for another

I think the whole point of this is that he would get the games there. Easier to keep Smalling and Jones out of the team than Kos and Mertesacker.

qs! wrote:

£10m would be great money for him. One year left on his contract for a back up player.

People are becoming far too paranoid about selling players within the league too. Of course we shouldn't sell our best players to our rivals but selling our cast offs is no big deal. Letting United have Vermaelen won't make them better than us because he's not good enough to start for us.

Would be understandable had we done the business of replacing him. Too much to do this summer as it is.
The money is of absolutely no use to us when there is already 140m sitting there.