Thomas Vermaelen hits back at snipes from David Seaman

THOMAS VERMAELEN has slammed Arsenal's critics, insisting eight wins in 10 matches prove their doubters wrong.

Gunners legend David Seaman hit out at Arsenal's back-line against Marseille, despite the clean sheet in Tuesday's 0-0 draw, after they gave away a number of chances.

Seaman said: "You look at it and still think it doesn't look that tight at the back. It was not convincing."

But Vermaelen fumed: "There is always criticism and complaining about Arsenal's defence. It does not hurt me at all.

"I am on the pitch to do my best. I am confident and don't care what people say.

"The most important thing is that we win games. And we have won eight from 10 and drawn one."

Left-back Andre Santos was often exposed by Loic Remy but Marseille's poor finishing let Arsenal off the hook.Right-back Carl Jenkinson also had a hard time, though Vermaelen worked well with Per Mertesacker to plug the holes.

Vermaelen added: "It is not only about defence but the shape of the team, the organisation. That is really important in the game, something we can improve on."

Seaman insisted that without Robin van Persie, given a breather on the bench for 65 minutes, Arsenal lacked a potent finisher.

He declared: "Aaron Ramsey was great but they missed Van Persie. Ramsey was in the box a lot of the time where Van Persie should be but they weren't getting a finish to their chances."

Chu-Young Park was out of sorts and boss Arsene Wenger eventually replaced him with the Dutchman. Yet not even he could break the deadlock.

Vermaelen rapped: "Robin is a world-class player, an amazing striker. But I think we have a big squad and he can't play every game. We have enough strikers to fit in in his place, who can decide a game, like Gervinho."

England winger Theo Walcott dismissed the notion Arsenal's laboured performance was due to a hangover from the stunning 5-3 weekend league victory at Chelsea.

A win would have put them through to the Champions League knockout stages. But manager Wenger felt the players were perhaps emotionally drained from the Stamford Bridge win.

Walcott, though, said: "We did all our duties right and mentally were very strong. Sometimes when we concede goals we switch off. I think everybody was alive on that this time.

"Marseille came and did a job. We can't always play as we did last weekend."