It feels like just yesterday when Andrei Arshavin beat the transfer deadline in January 2009 and boldly declared that he’s “Gooner”. I was convinced that we’d signed a player that was passionate about the club and was ready to do battle in our colours. I thought it was money well spent when he scored those four goals at Anfield, and a sign of more things to come.

Fast forward to April 2010 and I’m ready to take time out of work to drive him to the nearest airport with flights to Spain. What we’ve had from Arshavin in the last few months is a lot of whining about the lack of quality in our squad, his dislike for London, and his big ambition to one day play for Barcelona. In the last few days he has been quoted as saying just one season playing for Barca would be a dream come true. Our “lack of quality” has been well documented and spoken about, but the last thing we need is one of our more mature players talking about it in the press. I have no problems with freedom of speech but some things are best said and left in the dressing room. It is unacceptable for our record signing to be openly courting another team just over a year into his contract. What makes this even worse is the fact that Arshavin is not to be pulling his weight on the pitch and most of the time appears to be sulking, leaving Clichy exposed in the process.

People constantly go on about Arshavin being world class, but for what he has given to the club, I’d rather have a hard working Nasri or Diaby than a sulking highly paid player, constantly coveting Barcelona. Is this what we get for buying a ready made 28 year old player with no proven love for the club? Are we going to buy mercenaries just for the sake of silverware?

Do I see a situation similar to the Adebayor saga arising here? Adebayor played his socks off in the 2007/08 and was inevitably linked with all the clubs in Europe at the end of that season. I don’t recall a day when he came out and openly courted Europe’s big clubs. (Ed’s note – some might not agree with that particular view) Our immediate reaction was to boo him on the first game of the 2008/09 season against West Brom. I remember that day very well, I was there in the stands. From then on it was downhill for Adebayor, culminating in him “roughing up” his team mate on the pitch in the game against the scum. (Ed’s note – Wasn’t that was January 2008?) We booed Adebayor for his “lazy approach” to the game and general lack of application. Yet now we have a situation where Arshavin is constantly showing a lack of application on the pitch, constantly openly undermining his team-mates, and is now courting Barcelona. In my eyes he is committing more crimes than Adebayor did during his time spent with us.

Adebayor and Eboue were booed for lesser offences… now I’m not advocating for us to boo Arshavin, but the man needs to know what we think about his overall application and his latest informal transfer request. As Barca are always looking for benchwarmers, I think that it’s time to cash in on our little Russian before Barca wake up and smell the coffee. Barca are good for doing business with, we managed to get some good money off them for Henry and Hleb, and Inter Milan had the last laugh for the player + money deal for Ibrahimovic.