January transfer rumours - silly season as per usual...

[craig 5,199]

It really IS silly season !!! This is from Sportinglife.com

 

 

Zenit St Petersburg boss Dick Advocaat believes Andrei Arshavin is "too good" for Tottenham and Rangers.

 

The Russian playmaker has been regularly linked with a big-money move away from the UEFA Cup holders but as yet a transfer has failed to materialise.

 

A number of clubs have been mooted as potential suitors for his signature, with Spurs, Barcelona, Real Madrid and, most recently, Rangers all suggested as interested parties.

 

Advocaat recently expressed his belief that Zenit should allow the 27-year-old to leave but does not feel a switch to White Hart Lane or Ibrox would prove beneficial to his career.

 

The Dutch coach said in the Daily Mirror: "As a manager I would like Arshavin to stay but as a person I realise that he deserves more.

 

"But Andrei is too good for Spurs or Rangers. It would be better for him to stay in St Petersburg than to go to London or Glasgow. Tottenham has a fine reputation but I doubt that Arshavin will want to move there.

 

"I do not want to offend Roman Pavlyuchenko, but in my opinion Arshavin is a much classier player. He needs to move to a really great club. He didn't show his best form recently. For St Petersburg he doesn't perform as strongly as he used to.

 

"For me, it's obvious Zenit must let him go. I'm sure that as soon as he joins one of the European giants there will be no problems with his motivation.

 

"In fact, he'll probably do even better than he did here."

[Frankie 8,182]

Murray must have tipped the wink to Advocaat at Ibrox last weekend...

 

Absolutely no way we could afford or attract Arshavin. Simply impossible so I'm astounded at DA's comments.

[CammyF 6,887]

Murray must have tipped the wink to Advocaat at Ibrox last weekend...

 

Absolutely no way we could afford or attract Arshavin. Simply impossible so I'm astounded at DA's comments.

 

Unless DA has made arrangements to bring Arshavin with him when he and his consortium buy out Murray

 

Cammy F

[Super_Ally 0]

Not sure why we've even been mentioned.

 

Arshavin could have gone for �£25mil or more in the summer!

[theboyharley 5]

This has Murray written all over it. Absolutely zero chance we could ever get him.

[DJBlue72 0]

Would love to see him at Ibrox , but he is a player well out of our league there is no way we could afford his wages unless something big is in the pipeline , he was due to sign for Barca not long ago so why would he consider moving to us.

 

he will end up at a top end Premiership club.

 

Personally i would welcome Advocaat back and if he was to drag Arshavin along for the ride then better still.

[johnnyk 158]

Tops players like Arshavin won't come to the SPL even if we could afford them, he's not too good for us but he is for our league if that makes sense!!

Edited December 12, 2008 by johnnyk

[ascender 352]

How did we attract guys like GVB in the first place? Actually, that's not the question is it? How did we identify guys like GVB in the first place? For a young player looking to have a stepping stone to the Premiership, we're still not a bad prospect. And assuming they're happy to stay here for 3 years or so before moving on, I don't have a problem with that either. So is it a case that we need to employ a highly respected European coach again (forgetting the fact we're skint for a moment) or does it still come back to our scouting network being non-existent?

[johnnyk 158]

I agree we could attract good players wanting to use us as a steping stone, but with the likes of Arshavin he's a bit better than that IMO.....

[juffery 0]

How did we attract guys like GVB in the first place? Actually, that's not the question is it? How did we identify guys like GVB in the first place? For a young player looking to have a stepping stone to the Premiership, we're still not a bad prospect. And assuming they're happy to stay here for 3 years or so before moving on, I don't have a problem with that either. So is it a case that we need to employ a highly respected European coach again (forgetting the fact we're skint for a moment) or does it still come back to our scouting network being non-existent?

 

 

I'm asuming that Gio was someone Advocaat was aware of when he took over. Someone like Boumsong was fairly well known around Europe at the time he signed. But to be honest, I think our European run last year may actually have put players off coming. They will have looked at the style of football and thought stuff that, I'm not going there!