Arsenal Confirm Arshavin Signing

http://www.premierleague.com/page/Headlines/0,,12306~1543402,00.html Number 23

Wippe!

Thank God this saga is finally over! It's literally bad for all Gooners' health, what happened over the past month, especially yesterday. Eveyrone's feeling like 'This transfer made us suffer so much. He'd really better be bloody good.' Perhaps not entirely fair, expectation is weighing heavy on AA's shoulders already. No pressure then, just get fit asap and crush Spurs now! :D

I was wondering where he was hiding today- now I know, having his pics taken!!! And how good he looks too in the Arsenal shirt. You are very, very welcome Andrei. THIS IS ARSENAL!!!!!!

Haha yeah Julie! There's even a picture special with 4 poses eh! :D They didn't do it with Nasri, etc. before. The Arsenal.com people must know all Gooners in the whole world were pretty *****ed and they decided to appease us with a bigger package of webpages somehow lol.. And yeah PT, almost 1 day after the proper deadline until we actually see him in red and white! PHEW..!!

At least we should have buried the notion that we can't attract 'name' players. Hope he does well - he looks to be the creative force we have lacked for much of the season.

Of course, all this hype and incredible unlocking of the entire situation has put The Arsenal expecting him to usher an entire new era at the club, "a season saviour", at the least. Will he live up to this expectation?

So long as he performs better than those he's replacing, then he will save the season. I expect him to show flashes of brilliance, but he'll no doubt have to learn the ropes his first couple of months here. Interesting to hear him say he's not fit yet... granted he doesn't speak the language very well yet.

I think we should really be proud of our club. Spurs, Barca, Madrid all wanted to purchase this player (and offered a lot more money) in the summer but quickly backed off once they saw how impossible Zenit were to deal with. WE STUCK IT OUT, PLAYED HARDBALL AND GOT THE PLAYER. Unlike Zenit, Arsenal have maintained class and dignity by refusing to use the media to carry out this extremely difficult negotiation. Arsenal’s silence is the only sane, honorable stance to take in this media-driven frenzy. Arsenal didn’t play politics the way Zenit did. The Telegraph has reported that Wenger has not worked so hard on another transfer deal as this one, it’s been a nightmare for him, Friar and Gazidis. There are a lot of gooners, rival fans and pundits trashing our club for the way this deal went — they’re too ignorant to know that Zenit were determined from Day 1 to play this miserable gamesmanship against ANY club who came in for Arshavin, regardless of how much money they offered, just in order to carry out their vendetta against the player. I just hope Arshavin can have an impact for us this season, let’s welcome him warmly and be patient with his progress. Remember that he’s been dealing with hate from zenit fans, accusations of treason from nationalist groups, death threats and open hostility from his employers for months.

I don't think he'll be fit to play this weekend. He hasn't played a single competitive game in 2009 yet!

Supposedly he's flying back to Russia to pack and collect his family this week, I don't think he'll have time to prepare for Saturday's game.

PT - Arshavin is from Russia, the only reason he'd complain about the weather would be because it's too hot!

jaelle, that's quite a rant... I don't know, I live here in St.Pete, and the whole city supports Zenit and the players... I don't know a single person who hates Arshavin for his desire to join a bigger league. Maybe there are some fans who label him 'Judas', but I'm quite sure it's a very small minority. As for the negotiations, you've got to understand one thing - Zenit don't really need money, this whole saga was more about finding a way to somehow make Arshavin STAY and be CONTENT with it, as silly as that may sound. He's a local lad and the city adores him. As for that 'nationalist group', I've only heard a rather silly story about a local communist organization who accused him of betraying his country in the best traditions of USSR. Most of us just laughed it off, really. So don't believe everything you hear, we wish Andrei all the best, and the large Russian Gunner community is understandably delighted. :)

Hey PT, what about desiring the pastoral surroundings of small town Barcelona?

"I am Gooner" he said outside the stadium. Grammatically wrong but it sounds brilliant. Hopefully it will give us a lift out of this trough of despair we seem to have descended into of late. Good acknowledgement of the difficulty in making this deal jaelle. I said in an earlier comment that the deal would go to the eleventh hour if it were to be done. Zenit and others involved were never going to make this straightforward.

Yeah it's very obvious to me that Zenit were trying to ruin this guy's career simply bcos he wanted out after playing for them so long as a superstar there. For those who don't have ATVO or SSN, here's a free AA video: http://www.setanta.com//uk/Videos/football/2009/02/03/Arshavin-seals-dream-move-video/

'I am not a friend of Pavlyuchenko' 'Trust in me, trust in Arsenal' - Arshavin He's speaking my language!

Of course he's not a friend of Pavlyuchenko, that guy played for Spartak scum! :)

Thanks TP, just to make sure the feeling I had wasn't wrong.

RussianHammer, I will take your word for it, but my comment was based on months of reading and hearing stuff not just in the UK media but the Russian media and also hearing Russian football/zenit fans in my area of Brooklyn (of which there are MANY -- lots of Russian and Eastern European immigrants here, I've learned a lot about Russian football since first moving here because of them, they're very loud and numerous in the local bars for football games -- and lots of fun!). There's a family of diehard zenit fans two streets from where I live and they really hate Arshavin. They've shown me websites calling for Arshavin's head for some time now, but I'll concede your point that these things may have been sensationalized.

Although I have the idea that Flamini still plays a little bit more than Hleb does. Here is a thought: let's run a series on "How did they do after The Arsenal": a comparative approach based on how they got out!!! "

"I am Gooner" - I'm get that on the back of a number 23 shirt!!!!

Fair enough jaelle, there's a lot of different opinions, I'm just saying what I see and hear. :) Also, I'd like to say a couple of words about the reality of Russian football and why Zenit made it so difficult. One of the reasons is of course the fans who didn't want to see him leave, but there's more to that than just 'evil club trying to ruin a player's career'. First off, the Russian league is developing into a big force in European football, but it's a painful process. We don't have a lot of home-grown talent, and the foreign player quota is reduced each year. Arsenal, for example, can fill the team with French players who don't require a work permit and Wenger can play as many of them as he wants. In Russia this season teams can only field 6 foreigners, the rest must be Russian. Any club with European aspirations does its best to keep home-grown stars, because there's no one to replace them! Having said that, Russian league is obviously not the most desirable competition in Europe, so if a replacement must be bought, there's not a very big choice of top players. Clubs either have to find very talented and cheap youngsters from South America or Africa, or pay A LOT of money for an established footballer. Case in point - Arshavin went for 12 mil, his replacement Danny cost THIRTY MIL. Is Danny better than Arshavin? Hardly. Was there a chance to sign a good replacement cheaper? Not really. So all I'm asking is PLEASE stop demonizing Zenit, it was really a lose-lose situation for my hometown club. Yes, they handled the matters terribly, but it's not even like the people at the club had a lot of experience in transfers of top class footballers... Sorry for the long post, it's not really about Arsenal, so I'll shut up now. :)

RH, your explanation is well-argued and fair -- I and others may be going OTT in demonizing zenit. I don't offer this as an excuse but (for me anyway), it's not just been the incredibly frustrating drawn-out negotiations made in public, it's that the way zenit has handled this has given so much more fuel to the media, pundits and rival fans to insult our club and manager. We've already been on the receiving end of so much ridicule because of our season, the media keep linking our manager and best players to other clubs, we're in serious danger of losing our CL spot to a club that the media is openly supporting because they have "proper English/British" players and manager, yadayadayada. For my part, I resented zenit just giving them more material.

the good news has even reached sunny cornwall i so hope that he lives up to expectations, but lets give the lad a chance to settle in and aadapt to a completely different lifestyle, and to be given time to intergrate into the Arsenal way of playing, he has just joined the greatest club the world has ever known,and im sure that given time and space, he will be all we excpect (hope he will be ready for sunday!!!! )

I am Gooner