At the 11th hour of the January shift contract day of 2008-09, a snowstorm in south England threatened to help keep Arsene Wenger from paying a club-record payment on a from Zenit St. Petersburg. Despite protracted documents and mass frustration from the Sky Sports News reporter camped outside London Colney, Arsneal agreed a A15 million offer for Andrei Arshavin, smashing past history fees paid for Sylvain Wiltord and Samir Nasri. The signing displayed a steady shift away from Professor Wenger's dependence on the youth program, and an economic risk for a notoriously economical company. Fast-forward four years and there is hardly a word to be said about the Russian forward. Several Arsenal supporters dismiss him as lazy and uncommitted, and it is clear that Arsene Wenger has lost his faith in him. He has only started two games for the Gunners in 2013 in the League Cup. His only appearance of 2013 came in the 74th moment of the 2-1 damage to Chelsea. Richard Heathcote/Getty Images Arshavin's contract runs out at the conclusion of the summer season and it seems very unlikely that the Gunners will offer to continue it. After a mortgage cause back at Zenit, a potential January window move to Reading did not log off the bottom, with the striker apparently reticent to join a team bound for relegation. Some reportsa'such as this one printed in The Telegrapha'suggest the unwanted striker may even retire this summer at the age of 32, however The Metro say he was "shocked" by the idea of hanging up his boots, especially with Russia doing so effectively in World Cup qualification before next summer's competition. Inside their report of the present situation, Sunlight available with a sentence exclaiming that Arshvin "will go down as one of Arsene Wenger's worst signings." I must just take exception for this statement. In his first 10 begins for the club, he scored six goals and offered five assists. Throughout that debut Premiership year, he displayed great movement and vision, was strong with both legs and knew just how to reach a dead ball. In his fifth start, he showed how quickly he'd used to the English game with a masterful performance against Blackburn, where he virtually single-handedly took them aside and scored a superb solo goala'from a right foot that needed nine stitches at halftime. Perhaps his career highlight arrived in April 2009, when he scored most of Arsenal's targets in a fascinating 4-4 sketch at Anfield, against a Liverpool area who were top of the table at the time. No Arsenal player had scored four in a casino game since Julio Baptista in 2007, while he was only the sixth-ever Premier League player to score four overseas. This was shown when he earned equally Arsenal and the Premier League's Player of the Month award for April 2009, and when he was passed the captain's armband the following month. Despite playing only half of his debut season, he came second in Arsenal's Player of the Year awards with not exactly 20 per cent of the election. Would among Wenger's worst signings actually earn that sort of kudos? In 2009-10 Arshavin outscored (an Robin van Persie and was the combined second-highest scorer behind Cesc Fabregas. These period, however, his form started to slide, as he managed only six targets in 37 Premier League performances. Good tasks have become rarer, negative body language has become more frequent and the man named "The Meerkat" by his teammates is fortunate to look at a game title from the dugout today. Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images Plainly, Arshavin's moment in the North London sun has passed, but to call him among Wenger's worst signings indicates a quick memory. Also, it gives credit to numerous of the Frenchman's more dubious improvements to the group. Was Andre "I trade t-shirts at half time" Santos a much better signing? What about Francis Jeffers? Or Park Chu-Young, who is still on the books at the Emirates for reasons uknown. Marouane Chamakh began his Arsenal profession glaringly just like Arshavin, but he could also be considered more frustrating. Perhaps Arshavin has been underused lately. Perhaps he deserved to be omitted of the group. In either case, he does not deserve to be remembered for his fall in form, his complicated variety of facial expressions or his weird brother of YouTube movies. His present understanding is not befitting of his efforts. Hopefully the Russian is likely to be picked up by still another team who help him discover the spark he lit when he first found its way to London four years ago.
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