Arshavin: Gunners need more like me
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i think today arsenal with injure ronaldo to do barcelona a favor
=D
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Arshavin speaks his mind: Outspoken Arsenal star on 'scary' Wenger, the United 'machines', 'boring' Chelsea & women drivers...
Family matters: Arshavin with partner Yulia and daughter Alina
What we are dealing with here is a clash of cultures. Andrey Arshavin has just been given an opportunity to retract, or at least clarify, some pretty incendiary views on women drivers and has chosen instead to stand by every word and add a few more.
Katya, our charming interpreter, who has translated all this without a blink of her blue eyes, then attempts to place the man, and his opinions, in context.
'Russia can be a very chauvinistic society,' she says. 'There is a saying: "A chicken is not a bird, and a woman is not a person".' Noticing my look of horror, she quickly adds: 'No, no, we do not mind. If you said that to a Russian woman, she would laugh.'
And Arshavin is unreconstructed Russian in as much as he speaks his mind. Ask about the future of Arsenal, the best footballer in the world or his hopes for the Champions League final and a straight answer is returned.
In the next breath, he agonises that he would not get into the current Barcelona team and, misunderstanding a question about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, places himself at the outer reaches of the top 100 players in the world. It could be false modesty.
Arshavin is plainly a devastating footballer, but he needs to drag this Arsenal team with him if he is to realise his ambitions in the Premier League.
Today, Arsenal play the supporting role in what is expected to be Manchester United's coronation. Even if they spoil the celebrations at Old Trafford with a victory, it will only underline Arsenal's potential, a most frustrating commodity when allied to inconsistency.
'I am not very excited about playing in a game in which another team will be crowned champions,' said Arshavin.
'Arsenal have not achieved good results in the last few years, but that is easily explained because the team is so young. I believe we are now at a point where it will begin to work for us and enable the team to start scoring and move on as Manchester United did.
'A few years ago, they had young players like Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo, who were very promising, but they did not win the league and achieve the right results. Now they are older, they cannot stop winning. Arsenal have been recruiting players for two years, so I do not predict results a long way in the future: I predict them for next season, if we can add some others to our team.'
Arshavin's roots are in St Petersburg, a city he loves and misses greatly. He grew up in a Soviet-style communal flat, three families with one room each but a shared bathroom and kitchen. It has been painted as a life of grinding poverty, sleeping on floors, but Arshavin says he was comfortable. 'I knew nothing else.'
His life improved when he became a full-time player at Zenit (making his debut at Valley Parade, of all places, against Bradford City in the Intertoto Cup) and began receiving his wages in hard cash. His love of his homeland is pervasive but, since the age of 11, the spirit of his football has been housed at the Nou Camp, Barcelona.
He fell in love with the Catalan club after watching them win the European Cup final against Sampdoria in 1992 and only Zenit St Petersburg's insistence on a transfer fee above 15million euros prevented him achieving a lifelong dream by signing for them last season.
Arsenal came up with the money in January and, for Arshavin, an ambition to play attacking, creative football makes them, for want of a better phrase, Barcelona Lite.
'I did have an offer from Barcelona but Zenit were not happy. I try not to think about what could have happened and at least at Arsenal I am playing. At Barcelona I think I would be sitting on the bench, like Aleksandr Hleb.
'Which player could I replace? Thierry Henry? No, he is too good and I think Messi will be the World Player of the Year. If I could vote it would be for Messi. Even if you just count the goals and the beautiful passes and look at it statistically, Messi would win over Ronaldo. It has been close but Messi has been better. So where would I play at Barcelona?
'Last season, once I knew I was leaving St Petersburg, the choice was always England or Spain, never Italy. I think the English league right now is the best league there has ever been, whereas in Italy it is very defensive, very closed football. I do not like it. I enjoy the honesty of English football, because nobody gives up, and almost all the best players are here. Italian football is at the bottom because of all those scandals. Their league is not very interesting.
'Think of Chelsea. If you watch how Chelsea play, they can kill any team, not by fighting, but with the way the midfield play. Frank Lampard, John Mikel Obi, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, they will destroy you, they will damage you with their power.
Chelsea have a good team but it is not football with emotion: one goal and then (blows raspberry, folds arms) boring again. Always. I like teams that are more open. I like style.'
Now this might sound a bit rich from a player whose team has just lost 4-1 to Chelsea at home, but Katya identified the Russian characteristic as opinionated - she did not mention logical - and perhaps Arshavin was referring more to the 1-1 draw with his beloved Barcelona at Stamford Bridge, rather than the debacle at the Emirates Stadium that followed.
And as for women drivers...
Andrey Arshavin isn't short of an opinion or two, whether it be on football, politics or women drivers! The striker, who came close to standing in local elections back home in Russia, could be forgiven for being wary of all drivers after surviving being knocked down as a child. The driver of that car was a man, but that hasn't stopped Arshavin from telling the Russian press: '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.' So far, long-term girlfriend Yulia has kept mum on the subject but, with the suspicion his comments may have been lost in translation, MARTIN SAMUEL offered Arshavin the opportunity to put the record straight. This is what he had to say…
'I would never give driving lessons 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 is always a woman.'
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Andrey: Gunners need more like me
Russia international Andrey Arshavin believes Arsenal can turn around their flagging fortunes next season - by buying more players like him.
With a fourth successive trophyless season coming to an end, Gunners boss Arsene Wenger has come under criticism for his policy of buying and developing young talent rather than established stars.
Arshavin, 27, bucked that trend somewhat when he arrived for around £15million in January and he has now called on Wenger to recruit more of the same.
"We must buy in the summer," he told the Daily Mail.
"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.
"At the moment young players come to Arsenal because they see it as a very big team, but if we carry on like this without winning trophies, young players will not want to come."
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If what I'm reading here is true, then I feel he's very "Hao Lian"...
Sorry Arshavin, if you're looking for glory, then you've joined the wrong club.
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arsenal might win next season also