Will he? Won’t he? Why wouldn’t he?

A familiar theme seems to be emerging in the posts of my fellow Arsenal bloggers today. It is of course of Arshavin. January always seems to be a period where Wenger doesn’t buy that many players. Adebayor, Toure are names that spring to mind when he did but that’s roughly about it. I also can’t seem to remember such a media attention given to a player whose club is in negotiations but hasn’t officially confirmed one way or another for definite.

Now if you ask me whether Arshavin is really worth all that attention, I haven’t got a definite answer one way or another. On one hand, I saw him play against Sweden and Holland and he ran the show in both those games. Against Sweden, the Russians had the pressure of winning in order to guarantee qualification whilst against Holland they were up against the favourites of the tournament. So expectations contrasted and he succeeded. However in the semi final against Spain Arshavin for me was invisible and to put it bluntly, his performance failed to carry the momentum gained from the Holland game.

There are pitfalls with signing a player whose only performances you can judge are the ones at major international tournaments. These games completely differ from those at domestic level which are more scrappy in nature and test the endurance levels namely stamina to a much greater extent.

Of course big money signings don’t guarantee success. Ronaldo generated a lot of buzz from Old Trafford but struggled, we have the Robbie Keane situation at Anfield and even one of our own boys Henry struggled initially to make an impact. And lets be honest amongst all the other reasons to sign Arshavin, one of them is for him to make an instant impact on our team at present. That for me is a gamble and perhaps we have to take it. But lets say he did sign and he struggled enormously disrupting the team on and off field, what next? And what happens when Fabregas and Walcott are back, and maybe Rosicky? (One can only hope about Rosicky at present)

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