Vermaelen: Arsenal has been a great challenge

Thomas Vermaelen is pleased with how his first season in the Premiership has gone.

The defender signed for Arsenal from Ajax, and knew that playing in England would be a big step up from the Dutch league.

The Belgian admits that he did not expect to play as many games as he did, but believes he has learned a lot and improved as a player after his first season in England.

He said: "I really didn't expect to play as much as I did this season.

"As it is, I've played 45 or 50 games and that was really important. Over that time I kept learning about the league, kept adapting, and that was important because I'd come straight from the Dutch league to perhaps the toughest league in the world.

"It means that every game was a hard one for me. It's better the English way, because there are more allowances given for both sides and you can have proper contests with strikers.

"They're all really physical and hard to play against here – the intensity can be unbelievable but it's nice to play every game at a level like that."

Vermaelen's performances were a big positive in an otherwise disappointing campaign for the Gunners, who finished without a trophy for the fifth consecutive season.

But the Verminator believes his side have not had all the luck this season, and believes they will put in a stronger challenge next term.

He said: "I'm convinced we can do something next season. We have to learn from things but we're still young and, while we mustn't use it as an excuse, we had a lot of injuries to really important players over the season – like Robin, Cesc and Andrey – and didn't play many games with our best team.

"If we can keep our players fit I'm sure something good can happen."

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