Arshavin deal goes to wire

PERHAPS IT was inevitable that the haggling would go down to the wire. Arsene Wenger is hardly enamoured by the January transfer window and is a reluctant spender at the best of times. This is a manager who has been loath to fork out large sums on the finished article, preferring instead to develop younger talents. At an initial €16.6 million, the purchase of Andrei Arshavin has taken Wenger out of his comfort zone.

Throw in a reluctant seller, a player who had contested the need to pay back a proportion of a loyalty bonus, London’s frozen transport network and a ticking deadline and it is a miracle the deal was completed at all.

That it was forced through says much for Arsenal’s current predicament. Wenger’s side trail fourth place, and potential Champions League qualification, by five points. They are on a 10-match unbeaten league run, but have still rarely threatened to close that gap.

Not since going head-to-head with Tottenham Hotspur on the final day of the 2005-06 season have Arsenal faced such a credible challenge to their place in the elite four as that now posed by Martin O’Neill’s Aston Villa, and that brush with Spurs remains the only occasion when Wenger has flirted with the relative failure of a fifth-place finish.

This season, with experienced players sold and Tomas Rosicky, Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott sidelined by long-term injury, has threatened to expose as folly the manager’s faith in a young if talented team. Wenger has suggested there is a need for “patience”.

This is a squad who will still be confident of ousting Roma from the Champions League knock-out phase. Yet to let January pass without addition, and an eye-catching arrival to raise the spirits, would have constituted a risk with confidence still relatively fragile.

The question now is whether the signing of another creative midfielder, a 27-year-old used to operating either as a support striker or from wide, should have been the priority.

Goalscoring has been a problem, particularly in the absence of the injured trio. Arsenal have not managed more than a solitary goal in a league game at home since beating Manchester United in November and Samir Nasri, the high-profile replacement for Alexander Hleb who scored both that day, has only really fired in fits and starts.

Arshavin, like Hleb and Nasri on occasion, will provide menace and invention once he is fit, pulling markers out of position as Robert Pires did in his pomp.

Yet the assumption had always been that Arsenal were weakest at centre-half, where Kolo Toure and William Gallas have endured traumatic seasons, and in central midfield where they lack an enforcer.

Denilson has been impressive at times but is too slight to impose himself consistently on games. Wenger may recognise his side’s vulnerability, though pinpointing recruits who could be lured to north London mid-season is another matter.

He has, at least, secured a genius. The Zenit manager Dick Advocaat bemoaned his side’s loss and Arsenal’s gain as “the bargain signing of the January transfer window”. Some will express concern that so much money has been lavished on a player who has spent his entire career in St Petersburg since joining the Smena football academy at the age of seven. Yet his natural talent is not in doubt.

He made his debut in front of 9,572 at Bradford City in August 2000, the substitute earning a caution as Zenit won the Intertoto Cup tie 3-0. Within two years he was representing his country. His development has been rapid, frustrated only by the odd disciplinary concern – he broke a curfew in 2006 and was briefly relegated to the Zenit reserve side, while there have been accusations of laziness and question marks over his fitness.

Yet, had the Gazprom gas company not backed Zenit financially – he has earned around €89,000-a-week since 2006 – he might have flown the nest sooner. Having helped the club become the first from outside Moscow to win the title in 12 years, the two-time player of the year helped propel them to the Uefa Cup last season and inspired Russia to the semi-final of Euro 2008. Guus Hiddink included him in the squad for the finals despite the player’s suspension for the first two games.

Wenger had been tracking his progress, though it still came as a surprise when that interest crystallised. The manager has, of course, spent heavily in the past, though generally in markets with which he is familiar – France, Italy and Germany – and on younger players. The manager will no doubt spend the next few weeks preaching caution. Privately, he might concede that this purchase represents a risk given the philosophy he has imposed upon Arsenal. He must hope it also sparks this team’s pursuit of the top four.