Posts Tagged ‘Winger’

Ready made and ready to fire

Unreconstructed, outspoken and intellectual, Arsenal’s Russia forward is the antithesis of a Wenger signing – and all the more crucial for it

After all that After all that evangelical work on the training ground with the world’s best young passers and movers, Arsenal’s great catalyst may yet turn out to be a ready-made Russian whose mentor was taken out in a contract killing, thinks women should be banned from holding driving licences and flows over the pitch with only one eye on Arsène Wenger’s tactical masterplan.

Andrey Arshavin is the antithesis of the Wenger prodigy. Bought at 27, in a January transfer window (aka desperation month) – largely on the back of fetching displays in international action – Arsenal’s Russian rover is the counterpoint to all those youthful midfield products of the London Colney beauty school. He was not flown from an African village, coaxed by Wenger’s charm from France or enticed from Barcelona’s academy. Gunner No23 is beyond re-programming.

Now in their fourth year without a trophy, Arsenal needed a fully formed closer, a man to lead the boys. Wenger is never slow to present this gauntlet to the superbly versatile attacking midfielder/striker/winger who would have crawled to his beloved Barcelona had the Camp Nou plutocracy matched Zenit St Petersburg’s early valuation.

“He made his team in Russia win and if he manages to make Arsenal win he will become an all-time great,” Wenger says, with the usual clever mix of carrot and stick. “That is the real challenge and I am convinced he has all the potential to do it.”

In Arsenal’s deferred nirvana of mass potential, Wenger likes to build his own software into teenage talent, to inculcate the Arsenal Way of high speed one- and two-touch passing and athleticism. That style confronts its nemesis at the Emirates Stadium today when Chelsea steer their power and midfield muscularity across London.

Arshavin is jockey-sized (5ft 4in) but Chelsea will not shift him easily. “I just like Arshavin as a footballer because he has two things that are just down to him,” Wenger says. “He is intelligent and he looks like he is a shrewd street-player because he creates something always in unexpected situations. He has a low centre of gravity, great pace and a tricky dribble. He uses all he has in the locker in an intelligent way, and don’t forget he is a winner as well.”

An accusation faced by Le Professeur is that his post-Invincibles Arsenal teams are too effete and overloaded with entertainers at the expense of warriors. Arshavin, who exemplifies the manager’s creative faith, also brings a harder edge of ambition and toughness. Last season, against Blackburn, he cut his foot so badly that he needed four stitches but carried on to score his first goal for the Gunners.

Wenger again: “There was no question about him playing in the second half. He is not a soft boy at all. He is never in the medical room, he’s not that type. He is tough. He works hard, too. In fact, I am quite surprised how hard he works. I think he is a man of challenges.

“To leave St Petersburg – where he was the star – and go to England at the age of 27, saying: ‘I want to start it all again,’ you need to have character and like challenges. And he does it in a very focused way, I must say.” Arshavin is tipped as a future president of Zenit. But first he could fix himself in Arsenal legend as an influential foreigner to rank with Dennis Bergkamp or Thierry Henry.

Andrey Sergeyevich Arshavin is not another product of Arsenal’s cosmopolitan liberal culture. To ascribe specifically Russian characteristics to him would invite a charge of stereotyping, but there is much in his background that reflects the hardships of the old Soviet system and the lurching shift to a more western mode of being.

It is not reductionist, for instance, to point out that feminism (or perhaps we should call it equality) has made few inroads in Russian football, or the Arshavin household. “If I had it in my power to introduce a ban on women driving cars and to withdraw all their licences I would do it without thinking twice,” he once said.

Invited to clarify these remarks, in a Daily Mail interview in May, he repeated: “I would never give driving licences to women. We need to build new roads for them. Why? Because you never know what to expect from a woman on the road. If you see a car behaving weirdly, swerving and doing strange things, before you see the driver you know it is a woman. It’s always a woman.”

This is hard to square with the Russian picture of Arshavin as an intellectual who admires the avant-garde film maker Lars von Trier. “I saw Dogville – he is a real master of cinema,” he has said. “I remember once, I and [Alexsandr] Kerzhakov watched Dancer in the Dark and we simply cried together after watching it.”

With a reputation for depth (though not in sexual politics) he came renowned as a refusenik and agitator who fought for the young Russian contingent at Zenit and confronted managers. He told Russia’s Newsweek magazine: “I don’t mind who I work with at Zenit, the main thing is that it is not a Russian trainer. All that ‘Where have you been?’, and ‘Why did you not warn us?’ That army monotone; the regime, you sleep, you get up – all that rubbish doesn’t work at Zenit. We have a different, more democratic and modern team.”

When Guus Hiddink’s Russia, who were beaten in a World Cup play-off by Slovenia, were billeted in a shabby hotel in Macedonia, Arshavin asked that they be moved to a posher base. He said: “If it had been a Russian trainer in that story then we would have got together in the morning and he would have said: ‘Yes lads, the conditions are not good but let’s join together and forget about everything. The main thing is to play Macedonia.’

“But Hiddink immediately demanded that we move to an OK place. By the way, I went up to him and said: ‘Back in the USSR [in English].’ I didn’t say anything else. Hiddink did not live in the USSR but he understood what I meant.”

The union leader’s role was honed in nine years with Zenit, where one general director said: “Arshavin has invented an image of himself as a fighter for justice.” According to a new book called The Truth About Zenit by Igor Rabiner, the respected Russian football writer, Yuri Morozov, Arshavin’s first manager, tried to suppress his ego off the pitch while encouraging him to roam in a free role in games. Vitaly Mutko, the former Zenit president, told Rabiner: “Morozov thought this little boy star had too high an opinion of himself and needed to be put in his place,” but Alexander Panov, the former Zenit and Russia striker, said: “In his first years at Zenit, Andrey often took risks and made mistakes. But [Morozov] believed in him and gave him the chance to open up.”

Russia’s dark side intervened when Arshavin was assigned a trainer, Yury Tishkov, who was murdered six months later in a contract killing. “Tishkov was a saint. There are one in a billion and they can’t survive in our world,” Arshavin said. “That’s why they get killed.”

Another Zenit coach, the Czech Vlastimil Petrzela, acquired a gambling habit that cost him €19m, he later admitted. In Moscow’s Orlyonok hotel casino, the Zenit players would retire to bed at 11pm only to be woken by their coach asking to borrow gambling funds when his own ran out. This is not an SOS Wenger is ever likely to dispatch from the roulette wheel.

Arsenal, too, have sampled Arshavin’s pot-stirring tendencies, first when he said in May: “We must buy in the summer. Not more potential, but players who are ready to do it now. Players like me. We need two or three. If Arsenal want to win, they have to do it. We are tired of waiting.”

Four months into his Premier League career was a bit quick for him to be “tired of waiting”, but most Arsenal fans would have agreed with his diagnosis. Then, in September, he insisted on playing for Russia against Wales and aggravated a groin injury, which put him out for three weeks. He “should not have played”, Wenger said. Nor was the Meerkat (as Arsenal’s players are reported to call him, after the Compare the Market critter) impressed to learn that the top rate of tax on his three and a half-year, £80,000-per-week deal would rise to 50% next April, a discovery that prompted his agent, Dennis Lachter (since dismissed), to say: “Why must a player suffer, the club must deal with this problem. This crisis will affect not only Andrey Arshavin but Frank Lampard, Cristiano Ronaldo, the Queen of England and so on.”

Six goals in 13 starts represents a healthy opening to Arshavin’s second Arsenal campaign. With 997 minutes of game time, 12 appearances and six goals in his first four months in London, he finished second in the club’s player of the season vote, principally, one imagines, for his four goals at Anfield in a 4-4 draw with Liverpool. That stunning performance alone vindicated the Zenit manager Dick Advocaat’s claim: “Arsenal don’t realise just how good a player Andrey Arshavin is. He’ll be a sensation in England.” To which Wenger added that night in Liverpool: “He has personality – and he’s a winner.” These are two virtues craved by a sometimes swottish and demure Arsenal side.

Classic El Clásicos and handball horrors

Andy Murray: rap ’star’, fights of the week and the windiest wind in the world ever also feature in this week’s round-up

1) It’s El Clásico this weekend, which gives us an excuse for dredging up classic drubbings such as this, this, this and this. And also this game from January 1987, now known as El día de Gary Lineker because of the Englishman’s match-winning hat-trick for Barça.

2) We recommend that you read this blog while listening to this. There seems, sadly, to be no video footage of Andy Murray actually rapping – but here is Novak Djokovic. The good news is sportsmen can’t just rap – they can also dance. And Emmanuel Eboué can show off the shiniest suit in the land. No wonder he can’t keep his hands off his thighs.

3) It’s not Henry, it’s Henrique – the Brazilian winger who handballed after coming on as a substitute for Brisbane Roar against Melbourne Victory. More comedy than travesty, and he gets the red card Henry deserved. You can hardly blame the lad – it can be really embarrassing when the ball sails right over your head.

4) The players of Paraguayan club Cerro Porteño were understandably emotional when Fluminense somehow parlayed a 1-0 defeat into a 2-1 victory between the 93rd and 95th minutes of last week’s Copa Sudamerica semi-final, securing aggregate victory in the process. So they started an enormous ruck. Watch the goals and punches fly here, or, if you’re that way inclined, just skip straight to the scrap. The Azulgrana weren’t the week’s only unlucky losers – consider the poor Russian basketball players who produced a sterling contest involving a bloke with a hooter and security staff in jauntily-angled hats, yet were still denied the coveted Fight of the Week trophy. Honourable mention to Scott Niedermayer of the Anaheim Ducks, who tried to give his stick to a cute little blonde girl in the front row and succeeded only in sparking mayhem.

5) As for our equally popular Own-goal of the Week competition, Jurgen Sierens of Belgian side Roeselare (Roulers, if you’re a French-speaker) stormed to victory with this cunning (if accidental) backheel against Anderlecht. It’s tough on the young lad, bringing back bad memories of the time he played Anderlecht last year, got sent off early doors, donned a furry-hooded parka and sat in the stands displaying his weirdly elastic face to fans and TV cameras alike as he watched his side slump to inevitable defeat.

Our favourites from last week’s blog

1) Do not mess with these six-year-olds. They certainly wouldn’t put up with trick plays such as this or this.

2) The windiest wind in the world, ever. Probably.

3) A snapshot of footballing life in 1983 courtesy of Danny Baker and the 6 O’Clock Show.

4) Try doing this at Upton Park and see how long you last.

5) The All Whites are back in the World Cup for the first time since 1982. So we can all look forward to a hip-hop remix of this then.

Spotters’ badges: cmb1981, gladleftheuk, Signor, aidinho, HenryCheatTw*t, TheCorporal, RowdySaudi, Flantiff.

Wenger tells Walcott to focus on Arsenal

• Arsenal manager hits out over World Cup distraction
• Winger’s return to European action is overshadowed

Arsène Wenger is considering giving Theo Walcott only his second start of the season, and his first in more than a month, in tomorrow evening’s Champions League tie against Standard Liège with the Arsenal manager growing weary of suggestions that his players may become distracted by the reality of the World Cup finals looming large at the end of the campaign.

Walcott was introduced from the bench in Saturday’s disjointed defeat at Sunderland having missed five weeks after suffering medial ligament damage to his right knee in a challenge from the Birmingham defender Liam Ridgewell last month. Arsenal, who need a point to ensure progress into the knockout phase, are still adjusting to life without Robin van Persie, leaving Wenger to consider playing the 20-year-old alongside two of Carlos Vela, Andrey Arshavin and Eduardo da Silva in a front three.

Wenger’s squad is crammed with full internationals aspiring to play in South Africa next summer but the Arsenal manager is clearly annoyed by hints that the World Cup may overshadow his attempts to win silverware at club level this season. The Frenchman’s response was prickly when asked to reflect on Walcott’s prospects of making Fabio Capello’s squad.

“For me the big season is with Arsenal, not at the World Cup,” he said. “We do not pay players to go to the World Cup. We pay them to do well for Arsenal. The first pride of a man is to do well for the guy who pays you in life.”

That exasperation subsequently resurfaced. “Why should I not be frustrated? The guy asks me if it’s an important season because Theo is going to the World Cup. The World Cup is in June. Is he on holiday until 9 June? He’s paid by Arsenal every week to perform, and well paid. The reality in life is: ‘Do your job, my friend. And make sure that no one can ever say you’re not committed every day to what you are paid for.’ I don’t have to tell Theo that.

“Listen, a guy who has a poor season has a poor World Cup. It’s as mathematical as that. A guy who wins with his club goes to the World Cup and has a good chance to win it, because [opposing] players are not afraid of you if you do nothing all season. You have no respect from the manager if you don’t do anything at your club. The experience I have of working with players who won the World Cup is with [Patrick] Vieira and [Emmanuel] Petit. They won the title, they won the FA Cup, then they went to the World Cup in 1998 and they won it, too.”

Walcott’s season has been severely disrupted by injury and his captain, Cesc Fábregas, shares his manager’s view that the winger may have suffered as a result of playing for the England Under-21s in the summer’s European Championships , much to Wenger’s annoyance,having just returned from World Cup qualification duty with the senior team.

The forward was restricted to just 45 minutes of action in pre-season before succumbing to side and back complaints. The knee ligament damage, suffered in his second competitive appearance for Arsenal this term, prompted further frustration. “It has been really bad luck for him since the start of the season, probably because of what happened in summer,” said Fábregas. “When you play a long tournament in the summer sometimes it is difficult to come back. Maybe it was ‘burn-out’. He is still very young. When you make him play so many games at that age…”

Arsenal could do with Walcott’s energy and bite after the deflating defeat on Wearside. That left them eight points adrift of Chelsea, whom they welcome to the Emirates on Sunday, with Van Persie’s absence keenly felt. Standard, third in Group H, are still within reach of the knockout phase but the onus will be on Arsenal’s front line to prove they can maintain the side’s prolific early-season form.

“They have to do it for themselves,” added Wenger. “That’s what is most important. They have to show that they want to be winners. It’s as simple as that.We didn’t produce enough in the final third at Sunderland, or have enough fluency in our game. I don’t deny the loss of Van Persie but I feel we have enough quality in the locker to win when Robin is not there. The perfect way for us to go into the Chelsea game is to respond to that defeat by beating Liège.”

Chelsea bid €65m for Ribéry, say Bayern

• ‘We never received an offer over €100m’ says Hoeness
• France winger could still be a target in January

Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness has revealed his club received a bid of €65m (£58.5m) plus José Bosingwa from Chelsea for Franck Ribéry in the summer.

Chelsea were one of several clubs interested in the French winger, and their bid was not the most financially lucrative, but Hoeness told Bild newspaper that it was the “best bid”. However, it still fell short of the Bavarian club’s €100m (£90m) valuation of the 26-year-old, which is why they turned the Stamford Bridge club down.

“We never received an offer over €100m,” he said. “The best bid game from Chelsea: €65m plus the player Bosingwa. We also received other offers of €76m and €80m.”

However, Hoeness denies ever being truly tempted into selling Ribéry, who he claims had not demanded a move either. “He never came to us and said he wanted to leave at any price,” said Hoeness. “He always said to us that he would like to move to Real Madrid, but that if we wanted to keep him, then it was not a problem. [Selling him] was never a real consideration. However, we want to create the conditions which give Franck the feeling that he can achieve something here in Munich. If he cannot see this potential, then he will leave.”

Bayern are currently struggling to provide the France international with these conditions and they could be dumped out of the Champions League on Wednesday night should Juventus defeat Bordeaux, regardless of how Bayern fare against Maccabi Haifa.

This would inevitably make Ribéry’s name one of the most frequently mentioned when the transfer market reopens in January, even though Hoeness reserves himself the final say on the issue. “If FC Bayern says no, then Franck stays,” he said.

Championship: Swansea 1-0 Derby County

An unexpectedly exotic flourish, a rising diagonal shot by the marauding Argentinian left-back Federico Bessone, ended Derby’s resistance last night and propelled Swansea above Cardiff into third place in the Championship – their highest position since 1983.

The difference then was that John Toshack’s team were on their way down, whereas Paulo Sousa’s side are now unbeaten in 11 matches. Bessone’s first goal for the club, set up by Joe Allen, did not alter their curious status as the division’s lowest scorers. And yet Derby, having suffered a fourth defeat in five games, would happily swap places with them.

Derby almost gifted Swansea an eighth-minute lead. Gary Teale’s back-pass from the left wing sold Stephen Bywater horribly short, allowing Nathan Dyer to pounce on the ball, round the keeper and take aim from a tight angle. To Teale’s great relief, the winger’s shot struck the outside of the near post.

Nigel Clough matched up to Sousa’s system, which deploys Craig Beattie as Swansea’s lone striker. Far from being a cagey affair, however, the contest was fast and open in the first half, with Derby, as befits their manager’s pedigree, also striving to replicate Swansea’s crisp, ground-level passing style.

Robbie Savage’s every touch was booed – the Derby captain would not have it any other way – but his constant cajoling of team-mates helped ensure a more cohesive look than on their previous visit to his homeland. On that occasion they lost 6-1 at Cardiff, the kind of spree Swansea’s tactics tend to preclude.

Dyer’s pace and trickery frequently stirred an expectant crowd while Beattie showed his predatory potential with a 28th-minute shot which Bywater pushed behind after a short-corner routine straight from the training ground.

The longer the game progressed, the more Derby’s ambition became to hold on to a point. Swansea’s propensity for patiently working an opening – or over-elaboration as it often appeared – enabled Savage to pull his players behind the ball, en masse. On a rare break-out Jake Livermore wasted a free shot by directing so far off target that it went for a throw-in.

The initial, gratifying sight of two teams intent upon enterprise gave way to an attritional struggle, with Derby effectively challenging Swansea to break them down.