Arsenal have agreed a fee of about £15m with Barcelona for the sale of captain Thomas Vermaelen.

The 28-year-old Belgium centre-back must now agree personal terms with the Catalan giants and pass a medical.

The move to Barcelona is likely to be completed this weekend, ending Vermaelen's five-year stay in London.

Vermaelen joined Arsenal from Ajax for £10m in 2009 and has made 150 appearances in all competitions.

Vermaelen's form and fitness meant he made just 21 appearances in all competitions this season and Wenger admitted this week that the player needed to move on.

Before last season I though he may be perfect CB pair with Koscielny, sadly after Injuries the pair Koscielny & Mertesacker just get better.

I will never forget your goal against Newcastle in 95th minute.
For Vermaelen goal switch to 1:35
"And it's there, Vermaelen has won it! In the last minute for Arsenal! Newcastle devastated!"

But... I wanted Agger

Then who will play Centre Back against man city in the community shield and crystal palace in the league? Not Chambers because I believe he will f*ck us up because of his inexperience. We need to buy a back up CB incase Merte or Koscielny get injured cos now chambers has to play and his isnt proven.

Lol, Mathieu and Vermaelen are a waste of money for Barca. Agger and Hummels would have been much better choices.

Agger isnt confirmed to be better than Vermaelen, but i agree for Hummells.
Anyway its not a waste of money we had no defenders, and we doesnt need a world class one you know, an average one is okay...
Better than nothing, lets bring Cuadrado and our market would be complete.

Good to see that Barcelona are finally learning where to get the good defenders from!

Hahha agree Lodatz :)

@ ArsenalGunners - I wouldnt be too worried for the Community Shield. We don't have both our first team CB's available (Kompany and Demichelis) so we'd be playing inexperienced CB's as well.

Good luck to him, but I'm sad seeing him leaving the PL.

Not from Tottenham if you know what i mean :).
Hummells was much better choice but no problem now ;).

^
It is said that Barcelona despite the signing of Vermaelen will make a last effort to sign Vertonghen from Tottenham!
Tottenham has already told that he is not for sale though..
Lets see..
I cant even believe that we would get a 3rd CB while other years we didnt even buy anyone for that position..

Good bye VERMINATOR

What's wrong with Barcelona? Did they just ran out of money?

Vermalen was a decent choice for United but not for Barcelona, he is a mediocre defender Barcelona should be aiming higher than that if they want to be competitive this season. With this guy Barcelona already has 5 CBs so I fear this is the last defender they will sign.

I think we fell short of liquidity due to FFP rules, we need to sell players before signings.
Barça board had suffered some internal pressure by the fans to sign CB, they failed to sign Thiago Silva for 3 years now and lately Marquinhos, so yes we made panic buys overpaying in this era of the field.
Thats the way it is, hope Vermaelen/Mathieu will do well, i would preferred to see Godin/Miranda/Hummells or Blind but the pair we signed is better than nothing...

10 TO 19 M € FOR Vermaelen
Jordi Mestre revealed the financial details of the transfer. "Thomas Vermaelen has signed a five-year (...) the price of the transaction is 10 million fixed with variables 5m based on performance, and 3.8 if we win the Champions League with his participation. His Release clause is € 80 million. 0.5%, as usual, are intended to UNICEF. We wish him good luck and success in Barcelona. "

Vermaelen is a little error prone, but he's still better than an average CB. The only reason he doesn't start is because of mert-kosc, who are both better than any defender barça have. I wish him the best and I wish him to get back to his early arsenal career form. I want to remind people that he made it into the EPL team of the season in his first season in England. He's a good buy.

@arsenalgunners Well Chambers was great, he seems to be very very talented, I think he'll be an amazing signing for us. Only 19, he'll start for england in 2018.

@ramaboy we still might get agger.

^ We have bought 2 defenders now... there is no need for anymore.

^2 is not enough

I dont think Vermaelen is a good buy, he's a good defender for sure, but Barca needs more than that. Unfortunately, like some have said, probably Barca is dealing with the FFP and cant buy a more expensive one.

He's injured now, with a hamstring :(. Good luck to Barca

Sorry guys, i didnt met he is average, but like Mathieu they werent the expected ones knowing that we had no money limitation at the start of the mercato, now we have.
We are used to buy the best player of a team, and he isnt even a starter for injury prone reasons, anyway just know King henry that iam happy we have him, its better than nothing and i really want to see Piqué punished or fighting for his place rather than posting pics each 4 hours with Shakira.