Thomas Vermaelen has spoken for the first time about his pride at being named Arsenal captain.
The
defender has inherited the armband on a full-time basis following Robin
van Persie's departure, and is delighted to be starting a new chapter
in his career.
"It makes me really happy and proud to be Arsenal
captain - it's a real honour," the Belgian says in his programme notes
for Saturday's match with Sunderland.
"I won't change the way I
am, though. The boss makes you captain because of the way you are, so I
won’t change how I am in the dressing room or outside. I want to lead by
example, and do as well as I can on the pitch.
"Maybe I am not much of a talker away from the pitch, but I want to lead the team through the way I play."
Vermaelen, who skippered previous club Ajax as well as the Belgian
national team on occasion, said he enjoys the responsibility of
captaincy, and paid tribute to his predecessor.
"Every captain is
different, everyone has his own personality and does it in his own
way," he said. "Robin did it really well last year, and of course what
he did on the pitch was great as well.
"But away from that he did a lot of team building, making sure the
team was a real team, and I want to do things like that as well."
No comments:
Post a Comment