Arshavin late show makes Quaresma look sharp

Tuesday, February 3, 10.30am: And still the waiting went on... Chelsea's attempts to be the last club to sign a major deal with their loan deal for Ricardo Quaresma were made to look amateurish by the Arsenal/Arshavin circus.

The deal that sees winger Quaresma joining Chelsea from Inter Milan until the end of the season wasn't finalised until almost 7pm on Monday - two hours after the official deadline had passed, but that was as nothing compared to the Andrei Arshavin transfer, which was still to be confirmed at 10am the following morning.

Quite how the stumbling block of the £2m that Zenit St Petersburg claim Arshavin owes them will be resolved remains to be seen, but Arsenal remain confident that it will be resolved.

The problem is that Zenit - either naively or very cleverly - paid Arshavin several million pounds for his 'loyalty' when he joined the club. Now he is leaving midway through his four-year contract the Russian club are saying that perhaps their 'loyalty' payment was misplaced, and they would like it back.

Arsenal, who have already paid a club record transfer fee are loathe to stump up the cash, and so is Arshavin - who, through his agent Dennis Lachter, points out that London is more expensive than St Petersburg and that as he has two young children to feed and will be surviving on wages of just £70,000 a week he doesn't have much to spare.

As one Arsenal fan put it: "After all this, he better be good."

TRANSFER TALK: ANDREI ARSHAVIN

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 3, 2009