It’s still all up in the air regarding Andrei Arshavin, but the whole thing now appears to be down to a payment made by Zenit to Arshavin when he signed a new contract in 2006.
Zenit want some of that money repaid, Arshavin is looking for Arsenal to pay that money or incorporate it into his wages (which would push them above our ceiling) and unless some kind of agreement is made then this most tedious of transfer sagas will continue for the rest of the window and ultimately fail.
Arsene Wenger denied that any agreement over the fee had been made between the two clubs but Arsene has tried his best to say as little as possible about the transfer. It’s no surprise he’s giving nothing away even now.
I can understand Arshavin’s issue with the fee – I’m sure if I had a big fee like this I would not like to give it up. The future is in the players hands. But I don’t see why Arsenal should pay this money, it was not a signing-on fee. It was for him to play for Zenit for four years. Arsenal have been simple and straightforward to work with.
While Arsene Wenger said our wage structure would not be broken:
The players who come in here are all on a wage structure or they do not come in. It’s as simple as that. Nobody will come in above the highest level we have here.
One of the other issues is, apparently, that Arshavin’s current salary is paid net, whereas he’d be liable to pay a lot more tax on his earnings in England. So compromise is the key here and if Arshavin really wants to leave Zenit and really play for Arsenal then he’s going to have to accept that he’s moving to a football club and not some magical land with money trees out the back for him to pick £50 notes off.
There does appear to be some urgency now with Zenit saying that in order for work permit papers to be issued in time there would have to be a full agreement by 2pm today. Now it’s all down to Arshavin, it seems. To be honest I’m completely ambivalent towards the transfer now. If he signs, good. He’ll offer something a bit different to the team. If he doesn’t it’s hardly the end of the world.
Anyway, with all this transfer talk the game against Everton tonight has been somewhat overlooked. Obviously it’s a hugely important game, made even more so by the fact that both Manchester United and Aston Villa won last night.
Everton are a very decent side and although they’re struggling for strikers they have dangerous players, none more so than Tim Cahill. He’s caused Liverpool all manner of problems in the two Merseyside derbies recently so our defence, not exactly renowned for its … erm … defending, will have to be on their toes. They pose a huge threat from set-pieces and that’s an area where we’ve struggled in recent times. They’ll be looking to expose that.
The manager has hinted that William Gallas could come back into the side but wouldn’t say for who. The obvious choice is Kolo Toure, after Arsene raised doubts over the Gallas – Toure partnership, but to be honest I’d leave Gallas on the bench.
Midfield will be interesting. Obviously Denilson will come back in and it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the midfield lines up. He may play Diaby on the left and Nasri on the right to allow Song to partner Denilson, mindful of the physical threat Everton pose. Obviously that wouldn’t be ideal but with Eboue really struggling for any kind of form it might be the lesser of two evils.
One thing is for sure, we need to play a lot better than we did against Cardiff and with Villa winning we need three points tonight.
In other news he spoke about Eduardo, saying he needs a couple more games before he can be considered for first team action. He suggested a behind closed doors game might take place next week and with Croatia playing an international friendly the following week that should get him up to speed. Although I’m somewhat scared of what international duty might do to him.
And there’s news of Theo Walcott whose contract expires next summer. There appears to be an issue over image rights but Arsene says:
We are not against granting players image rights. Theo wants to stay, we want him to stay so we should find an agreement.
Hopefully this is right at the top of Ivan Gazidis’s agenda and something can be done ASAP. It’d be a good boost to know he’s on board for the foreseeable future.
So there you go. Tonight is going to be tough against Everton. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything crossed. Some more van Persie magic and it would be nice if Adebayor decided to have a good game because he could make the difference.
Till tomorrow.
