Deal Or No Deal? Arshavin On His Way Home

******** *********. Someone has lied to us and we need to know who.

Don't worry, Eboue is a pass master. I hope this club doesn't have the ******** cheek to raise prices next season. Mediocrity is what this club has settled on, it had better start reflecting that in the price structure.

Why did Wenger even bother to talk about why he wanted this man then, something he never does before capturing a player?! This is outrageous!!

The only thing that doesn't make sense is why he would decide to leave right now. He would only do that if he knew 100% that the deal wasn't going to happen. What a joke we have become.

GV - I'd assume he's spoken to Arsenal and they've told him to bugger off home.

Regi did say that we have somebody lined up if we don't sign him, that Rosina or whoever. Maybe we will, but don't expect it.

But as a club you either want a player or you don't, this is not a £30m request from Zenit, we're talking a few million quid. If Arsenal aren't going to act like a top club then they should stop charging like a top club.

Yeah Prof, you either want a player or you don't. There's a Chinese saying that goes 'It's not a bad thing if you pay over the odds for something, only bad if you pay for something wrong.' If the board think Arshavin is the right guy, why would £3m now versus later be the deal-breaker? It's not even the case of adding or saving £3m, if the reports are to be believed, but the case of paying £3m now or later it seems. It's Alonso all over again, the board choose £2/3m over a player they claimed they wanted - that's the gate revenue for ONE home game! I just don't ******** get it!

Ex-********-act-********-ly Rocky!! And not to count the difficulties in attracting players in summer, or even keeping our stars like RvP and Theo whose deals are to be renegotiated!! ARGHHHH

Is it really about un not being able to afford it? I just don't think they have the balls to spend whet they think is more than a player is worth. What a load of *****, Arshavin is worth 25mil in the current marker at least. Bull *****.

Ah well Iceman, for cup games we share the gate receipts with the visiting team. £3m/game is like regular league games, but you get the idea! If we weren't a publicly quoted company with financial reports and all that, I'd be seriously thinking there's some underlying money problems with the club that we didn't know of! Also to think the undeserved money we're paying Ade right now! You know if the reports about Ade's pay being doubled to 80k a week, an increment of 40k x 52 weeks = £2m+ already!! >_<

on again ...or again... might still happen before the deadline

Villa have spent £4million on Heskey when they could have had him for free in the summer. Why because its a starement of intent on where they want to be next season, on the face of it its a waste of £4million but the reality is its a great bit of business when your trying to push a club forwards. I guess by 5pm we will know where this club is heading in the near future.

Spot on Iceman. And that £4million was vindicated almost instantly with Heskey earning Villa 3 points in his first game. Where as we apparently happy with playing Eboue and Diaby on the wings.

That statement on the official website about not needing an instant saviour is just to prime us for the fact we're not going to make any signings. We had to rest van Persie on Saturday, our most in-form player, because we're saving him for future games and we duly went and drew the game.

LOL - I'm right with you Prof. Quite the rollercoaster.

If talks have indeed broken down then Wenger is a massver Bulls"*&^%er. How can a deal be 90% without practically agreeing a fee? And if it's practically agreed a fee then why not go the whole hog at this late stage? The only realistic reason Arsenal shouldnt follow through on this is if Zenit have moved the goal posts ... but after the dropped their asking price from £20M to £15M I very much doubt it.

The mere fact that any of you have believe anything that this club has told us is beyond me, they're taking us ALL for mugs and have been for years now.

WHat for a Arshavin Shirt to be printed at Man City! app hes stuck at the airport becuase of snow. Possibly could work in our favour.....maybe its not 100% percent dead.....i ant believe it though. Wenger said we needed players and hes bought ***** all!

Too comfortable, too complacent - that sums up where AFC and Arsene Wenger currently are. Fans spending tons of their hard-earned money to watch games. Away fans travelling all over the country not even being acknowledged by players.

We need proper answers from the board & wenger if we dont sign properly by the end of this transfer window, but while Wenger is at the Helm we will never get straight answers. Not that i want to see him out, i just dont want to be fu**** around by the club i love and support. When you spend 1k plus on home tickets, a further 1k on away trips in england and europe, travelling costs and all the rest, i probably fork out 20 percent of my wages on Arsenal to get lied too.

The Premier League looking to extend the transfer deadline due to the snow. Fan-f*&^ing-tastic.

If this deal could have been put together it would have done. There are all sorts of stories that complicate this deal - one of them concerning a £5m payment required by AA's agent . It wouldn't be a simple matter of £3m up front or later. The only surprise is that it was allowed to drag on for so long but then again the club have consistently told us that they were nowhere near a deal. All the talk been from AA's agent and Zenit - just as it was in the summer.

'If this deal could have been put together it would have done' - no ****!! I reckon even if we did sign this lad, there'd be so much expectation on his shoulders it may not work.

Honestly Amos if we and Zenit were miles apart, where did the 90% come from? Then when asked AGAIN by a reporter to follow up on the 90%, Arsene said with a smile trying to be funny: "91%." That's just plain bad expectation management.

He never said it was 90% done, just that Arshavin was the last 10% if the puzzle. THIS IS *****!

Lou - if i done that in my job on something important '90% there guv, honest ;-)' then didn't get anywhere near delivering it i'd be in a spot of bother and have to justify it emphatically, Arsene won't have to.

Thats bull Amos. Complete bull crud.

Which part Tom? that Arshavin isn't guaranteed to have a major impact or that we will depend as much on at least another 10 players to achieve anything?

Tom your reputation at posting rubbish is fast catching up with you, how can you guarantee this Russian is going to do anything special to this football club?

I firmly believe SSN got conned. They just issued another statement saying that talks are continuing. They made a massive effort to ensure everyone knew that the information that talks broke down came from someone else. The reporter must have said "we were told talks broke down", with the emphasis on "Told" about ten times.

It doesn't go beyond the importance of one player. Arshavin is either worth having for what they are asking or he isn't. If he isn't then it is best to just walk away rather than to buy a player just to make a 'statement of intent' to satisfy some supporters. If we really want him and he really wants to join us we could probably still pick him up in the summer for less than is being asked for now. Whatever happens this season isn't critical in the context of the club.

Haha Rocky really! Please post the latest bits, good news or bad, whatever you hear on telly as we don't have SSN here (thank goodness in a way)!

We don't know what the deal is or how it's made up but statements on Zenits official website tell us that it goes beyond just the fee to the club. From the little we know, including the statement from Hill-Wood a couple of weeks back, our final position had been made clear some time ago. Wenger has repeatedly stated that 'we are no nearer a deal' since then. That the deal is still open is only because others have outside the club sought to keep it open.

Well unless there's an immense surprise in the next few hours, it looks like we didn't line up any contingency plan. That's exactly the same mistake we made in the summer with Alonso. If this has been clearly deadlocked for so long, why weren't we lining up someone else? If this doesn't go through, there's simply no amount of excuses anyone can offer which prevents this from being anything other than amateur.

Being the incurable optimist that I am, I remain positive and hopeful.

Agree with you LD - I fail to see why we adopt this one target only policy. It's farcile to say the least.

Amos - I think he can have a significant impact for us this season. In those 14 remaining league games I would much rather have Arshavin than Eboue in our side. For one, he is far better equipped with knowing what to do in the final third either in terms of passing or scoring compared to Eboue. Rosicky isn't back for 8 weeks. Cesc for similar. We cannot rely just on Nasri and van Persie to create chances for this team. We need to speculate and take a gamble. So I think he can have a significant impact - even if that's a reflection on just how poor what we have now is.

That was nothing more than a manager responding to a question as to what he sees in Arshavin. You need to join it up with what has been said before - and since.

Can anyone now tell me that either the Nasri or Baptista deals were as frustrating as this. No, this is the worst in Arsenal history.

Clearly Wenger would like Arshavin in the side to and thinks he can make a difference otherwise there wouldn't have been any interest in the first place. But the world won't end if we don't get him. It isn't a make or break deal.

The world won't end, but Arsenal's tenure at the top table of English football probably will. The manager didn't need to answer that question, he could have side stepped it. Particularly if the deal really was deadlocked at that point. The club are also responsible entirely for the output on their official website, they didn't have to frontpage it.

No Amos, but we don't do every deal to make or break, do we?

I don't think LD meant our time in the PL would come to an end Amos, but certainly as one of the top teams. The club has certainly spent some time as a mediocre team in it's 120 years and unless there are some changes I reckon we'll be there again soon enough.

I think we need to take a step back and judge this situation after the transfer deadline is over. That said, I dont care if Arshavin is signed or not - this squad is crying out for quality reinforcements and needs to sign SOMEBODY, ANYBODY!!

arsne F***ing pi**es me off sometimes. If we dont sign him we will not be fourth place or higher bby the end of the season.We cant keep up with teams lik man utd chelsea and liverpool who dont mind spending 30 mill on proven players, much less spending 15mill

I agree with Prits, ANYBODY that the manager wants at all, I just trust him whoever he signs, as long as he signs!

Where did I say we had spent 120+ years at the top table shewore? It's just such misunderstandings that lead to your frustration. And prits you're wrong I am afraid. The one thing we don't need to do is sign anybody. We have to sign players better than we already have within a budget that we can justify.

If the player's demands were the only hold-up, with him already here stuck in the snow, *****ed off and hating to go back to St. Petersburg as a laughing stock (this saga has already been branded 'the soap opera' in Russia), it works in our favour that Arshavin might just want to close it asap (probably as much as we do) and drop some of his demands. (Pardon my mood swings, it happens twice a year, sorry.)

Our recent 'form' unfortunately is down to the ability of our players, not their potential, or the fact that they are in poor form, it's their ability. They worked their tits off on Saturday (apart from Ade) and didn't get a result, just not good enough i'm afraid, so can't grumble there.

There weren't any gaping holes last season. We have really just lost Flamini and Hleb - and since then Rosicky for the season. The rest were just irrelevant squad numbers. We have replaced Flamini internally and brought in Nasri to replace Hleb. Whether that's a gaping hole or just a hole depends on your perspective I guess but It's one we can plug in time. That we didn't in the summer is a shame but understandable if we really believed that Rosicky would play '80% of games' . If we don't find a replace in this window it's a disappointment but only that - it's not critical to the future prospects of the club. Prophesies of the clubs impending doom and decline are overdone and unrealistic.

Gilberto and Diarra were not key players for us last year. Diarra might have played this season but wouldn't have had anymore of an impact than Denilson, Diaby, Song or Eboue. Our problem is in the creative part of our game which isn't anything that Diarra would have contributed anything meaningful to. Medical advice, including external independent advice was that Rosicky would be back playing early September. They were wrong but not lying.

Shewore didn't say they were key players .... he said "Could have been key players". As for Diarra, he might not be the creative influence we need, but he is a spark. He breaks up play, wins the ball and can create space in the blink of an eye to set off a quick counter. But then again, it was mostly the players fault that he isn't here.

At least one Russian journalist has been able to retain a sense of humour about the whole affair 'It seems that for Gazprom (Zenit's owners), it has been easier to negotiate the reopening of gas pipes to Ukraine than it has been for them to sell Arshavin.'

The deadline has been extended but only if you qualify for the criteria laid out by the PL, criteria we almost certainly dont qualify for. If he isnt here by 5pm .... here wont be here at all.

For some reason I've convinced myself that this will go on until the end of time, from now on every day will be an Arshavin Day. I have a faint memory of a time before Arshavin Day, I think I had a wife and kids or perhaps that was next door, anyway they say that other news was reported back in those days. Hard to imagine such a time.

Yeah but Amos, with the injury record of this club it was really really stupid not to bring in some experienced quality when they had the chance in the summer. I read Clichy saying that this season's injuries are "unbelievable" when in fact they are totally believable based on the last three years. It's like surviving a bear attack then running back in the forest screaming for joy, as a club you expect Arsenal to attempt to reduce the odds of failure, the only way they can do that off the pitch is by bringing in players based on a worst case scenario brief.

Whilst we clearly lack creativity (hence the need for arshavin) to say we have adequately replaced flamini is a joke! Same back 4 has conceeded more goals than last season the reasons being we don't have a flamini type in front of the back 4 and we give the ball away to easily inviting pressure

Like I said first time around, this isn't about Arshavin the man, it's biogger than that. Frankly, I've seen the dude play three times, but if Wenger thinks he'sany good, that's fine with me. What isn;t fine with me is that the last time we put in a performance that was above adequate was Porto at home in September. 5 months ago. That's not because of bad luck or injury, that's because it's a true reflection of what we are. As shewore said, West Ham,Pompey, Bolton, Boro, we didn't not try in these games, we tried bloody hard, but we were pretty rubbish in all of them. By refusing to acknowledge and address how weak this squad has been allowed to become, the manager is accepting the current situation as one he is satisfied with. Three years ago, United went through a period of relative mediocrity for them (though they still won a League Cup and an F.A. Cup in that 3 years and never looked like finishing outside the CL places), Ferguson did not accept it and took action. I'm not demanding we spend £30m on this player and that player, just don't tell me Eboue is our new creative midfielder when you charge me nearly a tenth of my annual salary to watch home games, show me that you don't accept creating bugger all against the likes of West Ham, Bolton, Cardiff, Boro, Sunderland, Fulham, Citeh, Pompey, Kyiv, Fenerbahce, Stoke, Wigan, West Brom.

@Amos. No of course they can't try and second guess every injury, what they can do is be realistic and look and the amount of young players, look at the amount of experienced players, realistically imagine a worst case scenario and sign a player who will bring both quality and if the worst happens, cover. If it all goes wrong with the new signing then the club did their part in reducing the odds of losing valuable points. Would the side have been better equipped to deal with injuries with or without a realistic target like Alonso? If the answer is yes then the club should have the dedication to sign that player, if the answer is yes but we don't want to spend 3 or 5 million quid over our estimated value then I think that the club isn't prepared to invest in the team and are more focused on the financial side of the club.

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wenger-our-different-path-to-man-united.This sounds like a man warning us to expect mediocrity. Fine. Just reflect it in the ticket pricing please. P.S. Who writes the stuff on that effing site? Just read the first paragraph, it sounds like they're deliberately taking the *****.

It does seem ridiculous in hindsight jaelle. It was probably just as ridiculous to rely on RvP not getting injured (yet) too. ManU have generated more than £500m+ more revenue than we have over the last 10 years. They continue to generate some £50m more than we do currently. We have had one year so far since the new stadium opened where we made a nett £30m. Of course ManU have a better, more experienced team than we do. Of course we have had to tread a different path - especially while funding the stadium investment. What is so hard to understand?

Amos = Arsene? Have we been graced by the presence of the master all this time without knowing it?

I sat on cold marble for too long and now I have Arshavin.

All we want is some humility and honesty from the club, i know we're The Arsenal and wouldn't deliberately stain someone else's name, but if this falls through all we need is Arsene to say 'i tried my nuts off with this one, but we kept on getting p1ssed about by his agent/Zenit and it just couldn't happen' none of this '90%' ****e. And then not to say how he 'believes' that this squad is getting better and players are improving, that may be the case, but they're still woefully short of the mark. I remember when we were finishing mid table and were, quite frankly, ****. But i also remember when finishing fourth would have been a travesty! (a lot more recent) now we're talking about it as a success, fine, but not for a club that charges well over £1k (average) on season tickets, brings out new shirts each year, brands football games with 'Arsenal' and expects the fans to pay more... the list is endles...and don't get me started on pandering to certain player's wage demands and letting other's run their contracts down....

Sorry just realised LD's already said it all for me.

It appear Arsenal have done everything possible to sign AA, it's all down to this payment. Whilst I could condem the club for leaving it this late, they have seemingly done everything they can!