“I don’t know what this says – you
have to look at every game individually and where things went wrong
because each has its own story, you cannot simply say that we win
against some and lose against others.
"It is too easy to say there is a general pattern. If you want to
learn from your mistakes you have to analyse every single match and
see what we did badly – and every time against Manchester United
and Chelsea it was something different, not the same thing
repeatedly.
“As you grow older you keep growing in experience and character,
and 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."
Vermaelen is pleaed though that he was able to get as many games
under his belt this season as he did, which meant he quickly
acclimatised to the physical nature and pace of the game in
England.
“I really didn’t expect to play as much as I did this season,” he
added.
"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."
The Belgian's partnership with William Gallas was another highlight
in Vermaelen's debut season in the Premier League.