Andrei Arshavin: World superstar up for grabs or much ado about nothing?

Jonathan Wilson / Jonathan Wilson / 29 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

Jonathan Wilson looks at the career and character of Russia and Zenit star Andrei Arshavin and his on-off move to Arsenal. Is he an overated prima donna who has only ever played two great games or is he a world beater needing a bigger stage?

What on earth is going on with Andrei Arshavin? How can it be that a player who so illuminated the European Championship can find the transfer window closing and his future still undecided? Why is he allowing his career to slip away like this? And, just as importantly, should we care?

Well, yes, we should, partly because the case of Arshavin brings together a series of themes of great significance to football today: money, greed and the relationship between east and west. And partly because he could have become - may yet become - one of the greats.

That is not hyperbole. English football has grown increasingly less insular over the past decade or so, but there is still a remarkable blinkeredness. It has become weirdly fashionable in Britain to claim that Arshavin has only ever played two good games in his life - even journalists who should know better have said so. He was brilliant for Russia against Sweden and against Holland. He ran those games in a way that was supposed to be impossible these days.

But he was poor against Spain in the semi-final, when Marcos Senna marked him out of the game. So therefore, he became a player who can't handle pressure, a player who had freakishly and misleadingly played brilliantly twice. Nonsense: what player from any nation in the past
decade has been so good in two consecutive games? So he had a duff game? People do.

And, like all playmakers, he needs players around him moving intelligently - once David Villa had gone off injured and Spain had switched to a 4-1-4-1, the two Russian full-backs were distracted by their defensive duties, and Russia lost much of the width that had made them so beguiling. But Arshavin took the blame.

And what of his performances in qualifying for Russia, what of his stunning display in Leverkusen in the Uefa Cup, or against Rangers in the final, what of the performances that helped Zenit to their first Russian league title? Just because they weren't on British television
doesn't mean they didn't happen; a tree falling with no one there to witness it still makes a noise. So he is a player worth bothering about.

His comparatively late development is a legitimate concern, and Arshavin clearly does have a fesitiness that can be self-destructive (never more so that when being sent off with seven minutes remaining of Russia's final qualifier against Andorra, and so picking up the
suspension that kept him out of the first two matches of Euro 2008).

But there are other players with awkward personalities who prosper at the highest level.

Arshavin's misfortune is that he may turn out to be the first player stung by the credit crunch. When Tottenham tried to sign him in the summer, Zenit set the fee at £23million and signed Danny from Dinamo Moscow to replace him - as Dick Advocaat has now admitted. But Spurs refused to meet that valuation, and the six months since have been a mess.

The talk now is of a fee of £15million, which given the fall in the pound, is probably around half what Zenit could have got in the summer. But the new financial reality seems not to have dawned on Arshavin. Perhaps six months ago, he could have bargained hard and
been fairly confident he would secure something near the wages he was demanding.

But now, as clubs face a difficult financial future, Arsenal - who have anyway prided themselves on their prudence under Arsene Wenger - can afford to set their parameters and stick to them, which is why the deal remains only "90 per cent done", as Wenger said after Wednesday's draw with Everton. Arsenal have players coming back from injury and so, for all the verve he could add, they do not desperately need Arshavin. Wenger, clearly, believes they can still finish in the top four, they are [1.93] on Betfair to do so - even if his talk of the title ([60.0]) seems far-fetched.

All of which leaves Arshavin in a very tricky position. Zenit have Danny - they no longer need him - and why, anyway, would they take back a player who said that if they didn't allow him to leave he would remain their player "in name only"? That would leave him in limbo, for
other clubs might be suspicious of a player with an increasing reputation for being difficult.

A summer move to Manchester City, anyone?