I should preface this by saying that Andrei Arshavin is one of my favourite footballers. He's got it all, scores goals, makes them, and one of those players you just can't pin down.

However, one lesson we learn watching football every week is that even the best players aren't great every time they take to the field.

Former AS Roma manager Luciano Spalletti has long been linked with Zenit St. Petersburg.

In partnership with Russian Football Now, EPL Talk presents the second episode of RNF's podcast.

An active week in papers sees former AS Roma manager Luciano Spalletti take an additional step toward the long-rumored more to Zenit.

I knew it was too much to ask for for our players to get through an international break without getting injured, and I was right. Andrei Arshavin, who had to come off injured with a groin injury against Manchester United, rushed back too early to play in yesterday's game against Wales. Guus Hiddink, being the loyal Chelsea man he is, made sure Arshavin played all 90 minutes, and of course he re-injured his groin, and will now miss our next two matches the league fixture against Manchester City and the Champions League match-up with Standard Liege.

Arshavin with some of the taller members of Arsenal's first teamArsenal's Arshavin out but Rosicky, Walcott on way backArsenal's Russian midfielder Andrei Arshavin will miss their next three matches after aggravating a groin injury on World Cup duty this week, his club manager Arsene Wenger said on Thursday.

Whilst performances so far this season have been professional - with the results reflective of this - our opponents in those games are those who we should be victorious against if we have designs on a succesful season.
This now changes with the visit of Arsenal (and the trip to United the following week) as these will be more of a measure of us as a side, and our potential for the remainder of the season.

Russian star puts his foot down!

Even in imposing a vow of silence, the Arshavins can create headlines.

Andrey's wife, Yulia, was in trouble earlier this year for claiming that English people were 'too reserved', the country was 'dull' and the food was sub-standard.

Morning, it's Wigan on the menu today and a home game which seems like a bit of a novelty this season so far.

Only Robin van Persie is back from injury. Andrei Arshavin hasn't made it, neither has Almunia, Theo Walcott has had a setback apparently, and the others we know about already. The importance of this game should be in no doubt.

If you believe what you have read recently then you would think that Arsenal are a load of cheating bastards. Not the type of bastards who cheat on their missus but the type who cheat on the football pitch.
Say you came from Mars, just landed in England and developed an interest in football you would probably reckon that Eduardo invented the dive and that Eboue thinks he is the new Maradona.

Tonight the Arthurs, Hildas and Lionels of the football world will play each other and when the games are over our players will come back in wheelchairs, on crutches and with stitches in their groins and everything shall return to normal once again.

Russia play Wales and there are still some doubts over the fitness of Andrei Arshavin.

Andrei Arshavin is the latest injury casualty coming out of the international break as the Premier League sets to resume this weekend.
The Russian superstar aggravated a groin injury playing for Russia against Wales.
Arsenal, however, may be able to replace Arshavin with Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky - who could return from injury to slot into the Gunners' midfield.

Morning, it's a busy one so let's crack right into it.

Arsene's pre-match press conference took place yesterday instead of the Friday before a game but as usual he had plenty to say. Starting with injuries ahead of the weekend's game he said Andrei Arshavin would miss at least 3 games due to a recurrence of his groin injury.

We're yet to complete the first month of this new season, yet I believe tomorrow's game is a key one considering a defeat would see us trail the likes of Chelsea and/or Spurs by six points. I understand Manchester United and especially Liverpool are also trailing the leaders and have all the time in the world to recover, but back-to-back defeats against the two Manchester teams would be hard to recover from.

So the old Club vs Country debate is back in the news again, as Arsene Wenger was in an irritable mood regarding Andrei Arshavin's appearance for Russia against Wales on Wednesday. The Arsenal midfielder has a groin problem, which he picked up when his club took on Man United a couple of weeks ago and [.

Russian football had a tough time of it on Matchday 1 in the Champions League. Richard ("The Tapper") and co-host Chris Riordan took to Russian Football Now's podcast to break down:

• Rubin Kazan's failures in Kiev,
• how Ramos's style hurt CSKA Moscow in Wolfsburg,
• the poor results of Russian teams in European play,
• Russian nationals performing across Europe,
• Andrei Arshavin's injury quandary at Arsenal,
• the rumors of Spalletti, Mancini to Zenit,
• review of last week's league action, and
• preview of the upcoming round of fixtures.

I find myself somewhat *boilked* this morning. Stupid Arthur.

Arsene Wenger's normal pre-game press conference took place yesterday instead of today as Arsenal were celebrating the official opening of Highbury Square. Last time I saw Highbury it was all bockety and muddy and a bit sad looking, will have go take a look next time I'm over.

Everyone knows The Onion Bag is the place to get your soccer jersey customized, but not everyone knows what the most popular customizations are at our shop and at OnionBag.com. This is a list of the top sellers since the beginning of the 2009/2010 season. Some of the names might surprise you (Chamone!

At the weekend we discussed accusations of Serie A referees favoring bigger clubs and now we have similar accusations of French referees favoring French clubs in the Champions League. Well, not actual French clubs, because their success in the Champions League would be far too suspicious. No, they're accused of favoring the one good club that's more French than Gerard Depardieu in a beret Arsenal.

Goodbye! Cheerio! See ya later, Interlull. Yeah, that's right. Pack your bags and shove off.

Thankfully it's over. It seems like the longest Interlull of all time and there have been many lengthy and tedious ones in the past. At this moment in time there don't appear to be any casualties but we'll have to wait for official confirmation of that.

For Premier League fans around the world, the last couple of weeks have been almost too painful to endure as something very important seems to have disappeared out of our lives. But with yet another international period finally in the books, we can once again look forward to the return of our most beloved brand of football this weekend.

It was a great weekend for Manchester United. Not so much for its current stopper, Ben Foster. Edwin Van der Sar's stand-in keeper has not impressed at United so far as he had a sub-par performance against their city rivals. Had it not been for Michael Owen's late winner, Foster would've been ripped apart by Sir Alex Ferguson.

When Arsenal won against Standard Liege, having come from 2 goals down, the performance was poor but I thought the way we won the match was important. We played poorly and managed to produce a comeback from a couple of goals down. Every team needs games like that to give them the belief they can salvage something when things are going wrong.