Vermaelen wants to leave arsenal simply because he wants more playing time.
Even though arsenal would prefer to sell him to barca rather than man u, I think vermaelen would push it through to be allowed to go to man u to get playing time.
Despite being the captain and having been benched for such time, he never went acting difficult, I guess therefore arsenal will grant him his wish as long as man u pays what they want which does not seem to be any problem.
Belgium will have some good chances over the coming years to make it far in any tournaments.
So for that, players who want to start for Belgium will need to be starters at their teams unlike it was for some of them this year.
So I think this will be a very big reason for him to choose a team where he will almost for sure be a starter.
And unlike most of you seem to state, he is not that much of a horrible player.
There are better defenders around but for his price he would be a very decent signing although risky as he is injury prone and it is unsure how he will perform as his best level is some time behind him now so it would depend if he could get back to his old level or not. (or perhaps I am looking at him with a different opinion as I am Belgian as well...)
