Zenit Saint Petersburg forward and Russian international Andrei Arshavin (27) will not play for Barcelona in the future, like had been rumoured over the last months (read more here).
Arsenal has yesterday officially announced the transfer of Arshavin: "Arsenal Football Club is delighted to announce that Russian international midfielder, Andrey Arshavin has joined the Gunners from Zenit St. Petersburg on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee."
Zenit has confirmed the transfer on their official website. The Russian player, for whom Arsenal is believed to have paid a little 19 million euro°, would have signed a contract for the next two-and-a-half years.
pep's opinion:
a real pity that we weren't able to push this deal through. a quality player, a confessed culé, hungry to play in a top league. hleb still at arsenal and arshavin with us: it wouldn't have cost us more and we would have been less messi-dependent.
Read more:
Arshavin repeats Barcelona is his favourite club
Case closed: Pavlyuchenko
Barcelona wanted Arshavin as a substitute 
Wednesday 4 February 2009
Case closed: Arshavin
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10 comments:
19 million euro =
24 million us dollar
17 million british pound
Agree with you pep. It seems like we treated his desperation to join us with undeserved scorn. If we had even shown a little interest i think he might have stayed at Zenit till the end of the season. The transfer fee has been reported in some papers to be a lot less than that (around 12 mill pounds) with Zenit making last min calls to other clubs like tottenham asking them if they were willing to offer more. With Hleb performing the way he is Arshavin could have been the perfect replacement, a better choice for LW than the oft-suggested Kun.
Zenith were unwilling to negotiate when we tried to sign arshavin. They said all kinds of stupid things like "give us messi and cash for arshavin" and then demanding 20 milion pounds and more i believe. In fact I seem to recall them demanding 30 million euros. Seeing that they were unwilling to budge and we wanted a left winger we went for hleb. I think what really annoyed barca's board was the statement "give us messi and cash for arshavin". I know i was pissed after that and i said to hell with zenith. arshavin is nice but they were not serious about selling him.
kamikaze, why are we so sure Andre would be hit at Barca? Was Hleb so bad playing in Germany and England? If anyones is to chose between the 2 based on "tested & trusted" Hleb has played in 2 stronger leagues. So, lets hope Hleb pick up. Zenith was silly cos we agreed £12Mil b4 euro '08 and he "over-performed" and his price went up by £8Mil. Do u blame the board for not bending over? I would not cry over split milk.
As mentioned above we bought a proved product on the highest levels (Hleb) for a price that was less than the "take it or leave it" money demanded by Arshavine club, and he didnt/and doesnt worth half of their demands back then.
Zenit in the other hand tried to abuse the board despirit need for a transfer that will make fans excited before the Motion of reproof so they demanded high price. But sercastically when Sandro critisized the current board for their attempt to pay lot of money to buy a player they were able to get cheaper before euro2008, Zenit lost this advantage.
- The player need to prove himself on the highest level, I have a feeling that Winger signed him to raise the spirit on the stands beside we must not ignore lack of resources because of injuries in Arsenal squad. So he still has to prove himself game in game out before we say we lost him, remember Qaurizma was a dream signing for lot of fans before Inter snaped him, Vander vart as well, I wonder what we think now...
Time will tell if Picking cheaper and more reliable target like Hleb was better or worse than picking a one-season-bomb risky cute player like arshavine, and when I say "time" I mean 18 months, not one game.
Beside you need to take the player lack of maturity in consediration as well.
well said Ramz
I m not too sure what the story was last summer but I cant imagine Hleb ever doing what we have seen Arshavin do. Buying Arshavin for me would have equalised the degree of penetration from right and left flanks.
So anyway I wasn't talking about last summer. Arshavin repeatedly offered himself to Barca over the course of last year and Zenit's stupid posturing has actually improved the Arsenal's situation w.r.t the player's motivation. For a player with whom temperament is the main concern Arsenal now have someone eager to prove himself and likely to work extremely hard to achieve the results that were aspired for with his buy.
Hleb may or may not have been the best we could lay hands on last season but he has come unstuck this season with us and getting rid of him might have been the best option if Arshavin were still available to us.
I would be extremely wary of buying players from the Premiership becoz defenders just play in a different way there. They give a lot more space by backing off and are slow n heavy with their challenges. Henry is a revelation this season not because he could mimic his performances with Arsenal but rather becoz he has the intelligence n character to try n prove himself by performing in a more limited role which makes use of his abilities in a different way.
Arshavin has been bought by Arsenal for pretty much the same price we paid for Hleb so I m not quite sure how the Hleb buy was a steal for us.
I can only add... thank god... now let's watch him flop.
Nothing against andrei. He's been pretty vocal about his love for Barcelona but his club ruined any chance for him to come our way last season. I wish him luck in the EPL.
I for one am glad we didn't get him. He was invisible in the Champions League group stage where he would have had motivation to shine against Real and Juve to show his value to potential suiters. Granted he is a Barca supporter and wanted to join us but who wouldn't??? Barca has the best squad in the world, play the best football in the world and are the best club in the world. Three very good reasons for a player to want to join us. I wish him well but I feel there are better targets as mentioned before on this blog.
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