His Arsenal career is in tatters but can the club afford to sell him at such a large loss?

Remember Euro 2008? That tournament that England weren’t involved in. The tournament that was lit up by the Spaniards finally coming of age. The tournament which introduced to the world the, at the time, relatively unknown quantity that was Andrei Arshavin. See, folk get so caught up in the Spain brilliance of that summer that they forget Russia themselves put on a decent little show – hauling themselves to the semi-finals thanks in no small part to the work of the diminutive playmaker in question. Remember their 3-1 win over Holland in the quarter finals? Arshavin was instrumental in that victory and proved to the rest of Europe his innate brilliance, scoring two goals and earning himself a place in the UEFA squad for the tournament.

Fast forward three-and-a-half years and the little Russian finds himself struggling to make Arsenal’s first XI and on a hiding to nothing with the club’s loyal fans. It’s a very strange state of affairs when you consider the impact he had when joining the Gunners from Zenit St Petersburg shortly after his Euro 2008 exploits. Arsene Wenger, known for spotting and nurturing a talent, chased his man for a time even before that tournament and finally acquired his services in the January transfer window of the 2008-09 season for a fee of £15 million.  He wasted no time in settling in and quickly found himself amongst the goals – a four-goal haul at Anfield in a 4-4 draw with Liverpool the outstanding highlight in his first season at the Emirates.

In the two seasons leading up to the current campaign Arshavin featured prominently for Arsenal – racking up over 60 league appearances, missing out on only one league game in the 2010-11 campaign. He reached double figures for the first time as a Gunner last season and it seemed that Arsene had found himself a serious playmaker – the perfect man to play in the hole.

You could say he filled the void that was left following Dennis Bergkamp’s departure some years before. With that in mind, it makes it all the more surprising considering his lack of form in this campaign.

It started off well enough – a goal (albeit a very strange one) against Swansea City in September seemed to have put Arshavin on the way to a promising stretch of form. However, that seemed to be a red herring as he has quickly fallen out of Arsene Wenger’s plans and has constantly found himself restricted to bit-part appearances from the bench. Two instances spring to mind from this season in which he has looked a shadow of his former self – his appearance in the second half of the Gunners’ 1-0 defeat to Man City in which he looked uninterested and uninspired and his cameo against Man United last weekend in which he could have prevented the opposition’s winning goal had he shown more desire.

Arsene Wenger finds himself in quite a conundrum here. He has a player who cost the club £15 million, a player who will be earning a very healthy wage and a player who simply isn’t pulling his weight – the boss’s lack of faith in not putting him in the starting XI every week proves the latter point. Arshavin needs to start proving his worth, proving that he wants it and proving that he’s the player he was when Arsenal signed him.

He’s obviously a highly talented attacking midfielder – diligent, intelligent and the ideal candidate to sit in the hole behind Robin van Persie. Can he turn his fortunes around or is his Premiership fairytale coming to a disappointing conclusion? Only he can decide.

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