Arsenal striker Andrei Arshavin yesterday revealed that the lack of regular playing time was a major factor that influenced his decision to leave the club. Having made only a handful of appearances for the Gunners this season (most of them from the bench), Arshavin said that he was happy with his return to his old club.

Liverpool legend Mark Lawrenson has launched a scathing attack on Andrei Arshavin, arguing that the Russian International striker no longer cares about playing for Arsenal. Arshavin was at fault for Manchester United's winning goal against Arsenal recently, and Lawro believes it's time for the player to leave the Emirates.

Morning all,

and let's start with some good news, for a change. Word is Thomas Vermaelen could be in line to play against United later on. He trained with the first team yesterday and assuming all went well it means he'll start the game at left back. It'll certainly add some solidity to a back four which could really do with it at the moment, but we ought not to forget that our defensive issues aren't simply the domain of that group of players.

After a disappointing start to this calender year, Arsenal were finally able to secure their first Premier League win of 2012, picking up 3 vital points against Blackburn Rovers in a 7-1 demolition at The Emirates.

Once again, Robin van Persie showed just how important he is to this Arsenal side scoring three and making two others during a numbingly-cold afternoon in North London.

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When the cream of international European football hits Poland and Ukraine this Summer, sparks are guaranteed to fly.

The 2012 European Championships are shaping up to be one of the most fascinating major tournaments for decades and from a punting perspective there is plenty to get your teeth into – regardless of whether you are looking to make large wagers or place free bets.

As we know the transfer window is open and that means its silly season time again.
Arsenal will be linked with every Tom, Dick and Harry from the Tombs of the Nobles to Outer 'order' Mongolia.
Some of the rumours will make you laugh, others you can take more seriously.
Lukas Podolski is a player that Arsene Wenger is supposedly looking at.

Arsene Wenger has been talking about the latest Arsenal transfer rumours saying that Andrei Arshavin will be allowed to leave the Emirates this month, and he believes that the Russian still has a job to do for the Gunners despite a series of lacklustre performances. Wenger says that, although Arshavin seems to be lazy on [.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has rubbished suggestions that substituting Andrei Arshavin for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain led to the club's 2-1 defeat at home to Manchester United and insists that he owes the doubters no explanation.

With the Gunners tied 1-1 after Chamberlain had assisted Robin van Persie second-half equalizer to Luis Antonio Valencia's first-half opener, Wenger brought Arshavin on to a negative reaction throughout the Emirates Stadium.

Andrei Arshavin has been supported by manager Arsene Wenger after his lazy man-marking and tackling against Luis Antonio Valencia created Danny Welbeck's match-winning goal in Manchester United's 2-1 win at Arsenal last night.

Arshavin, who infamously replaced Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to a negative reaction throughout the Emirates Stadium, has been on the receiving end of tremendous flak for lacking energy in such a massive fixture.

Thierry Henry

I should have gone to Bolton. ... Wenger really needs to teach these kids how to use their hands. ... I wonder if they've come up with any good puns based on the surnames of Asian basketball players back in New York over the last two months. ... Andrei Arshavin: What's the deal with that guy?

Lending out Andrei Arshavin to his former club Zenit St. Petersburg of Russia while you're fighting for fourth place and a Champions League spot next season is nothing short of a salary dump. The Russian team is reportedly going to take over Arshavin's paycheques until the end of the season and will hand over a cool million pounds to Arsenal for the use of the player.

Following an impressive run that saw it top EURO 2012 qualifying Group B, Russia is into its third consecutive European championships. Captained by Andrei Arshavin and managed by respected Dutch...

It's been far too long since Andrei Arshavin continued the greatest Q&A ever with the crazies who read his official website and since he returned to Zenit St. Petersburg on loan from Arsenal until the end of the season, we've been light on Arshavin news in general. So to hear that Andrei was in a car accident in St.

Arsenal have a reputation for their graceful and classy style of play and that apparently translates rather well to ballet. In an ad for French (and thus Arsene Wenger approved) car maker Citroen, Wojciech Szczesny, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Alex Song and Bacary Sagna were paired off with ballerinas from the English National Ballet and put through their paces.

All the stuff being covered outside the unfriendly confines of the award-winning Dirty Tackle...

Adidas unveiled the new Predator Lethal Zones at an event Manchester and to prove their "unleash deadly" tagline, they had Nani, Edin Dzeko and Tom Cleverley decapitate footballer shaped targets (1:10 into the video), among other challenges.

The Russian national team could be forgiven for treating all matches up to the 2018 World Cup finals as a warm up for that competition. After all, the amount of money being spent on the first tournament to be held in the country will be vast and expectations amongst the Russian public will be accordingly high.

There have been numerous rumours saying that Andrei Arshavin is now considered surplus to requirements at Arsenal, and the Russian captain has also made it plain that he is worried about losing his place in the national team if he doesn't play regularly for the Gunners. The Zenit technical director Igor Korneev admitted last month [.

Happy Friday the 13th to you.

Of course it's only unlucky if you're in certain parts of the world and if you believe in superstition. And the only superstition I believe in these days is the one Stevie Wonder belts out. Still, I hope your evening is filled with all the beautiful things this day brings: escaped lunatics wearing hockey masks and eviscerating people with a chainsaw.

Here we are in the January transfer window, and we are all excited over the new stars that will be coming to the Emirates.

There is talk of this one, and talk of that one. Yet behind all the hype in the press you have Wenger telling us what I am afraid is going to be a very big disappointment for us all, and that is they do not want to spend any money with this financial crisis going to only get worse.

What is UP, Arshavin! According to Spanish newspaper, Sport, occasionally loco striker Andrei was seen on Monday in Barcelona, ??where he went to shoot a sports commercial (just like Neymar did last week) in the city. And you can officially put the 'Arshavin to Barcelona?

Lots of websites are going 'black' today, Wikipedia for example, to protest against proposed new laws in the USA which will make everyone have to connect to the internet through AOL with all their family filters turned on.

I was considering going black to bemoan our transfer policy, general crapness, toilet queues at the stadium and 'The Wonder of You'.

photo by ISIphotos.com

By FRANCO PANIZO

A day after unveiling Quaker Oats as its jersey sponsor, the Chicago Fire made another big announcement.

The Fire re-signed midfielder Pavel Pardo on Wednesday, the club announced on its website.

Match report Video -

It's interesting that even this morning the focus appears to be on a controversial substitution when the bigger issue is the fact we've just lost our third league game in a row, taking our total of defeats in the league this season to eight.

When Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's number went up in the 74th minute many of the 60,000 at the stadium made it quite clear what they thought of the decision.

Okay well we certainly all know that Arsene Wenger made a great error in replacing The Ox with Andrei Arshavin yesterday, but the fact is that he wanted Arsenal to win the game, and at 1-1 with 15 minutes to go he had to try and refresh his attacking options. Okay lets look at the [...]

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has made it clear that he wants to follow up his impressive Premier League debut against Manchester United by starting regularly for the Gunners.

Oxlade-Chamberlain was preferred to the likes of Andrei Arshavin and Yossi Benayoun as he was surprisingly named a started for the visit of the defending champions.

Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville has publicly slammed Arsenal midfielder Andrei Arshavin following Sunday's match at the Emirates.

Neville, now in his role as a Sky Sports pundit, was critical of Arsene Wenger's decision to sub the effervescent Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, especially as the struggling Arshavin replaced him.

Arsene Wenger continues to stick by Andrei Arsharvin despite being a serial under achiever in his three years at the club. Kedah management seem to be thinking that after four games their two Brazilian imports aren't up to the mark. One hasn't played yet but I guess that's just a minor detail.
The manager says the team 'play well so far' but they can't find the goal.

Arsene Wenger continues to stick by Andrei Arsharvin despite being a serial under achiever in his three years at the club. Kedah management seem to be thinking that after four games their two Brazilian imports aren't up to the mark. One hasn't played yet but I guess that's just a minor detail.
The manager says the team 'play well so far' but they can't find the goal.

Arsene Wenger keeps going on about he will only ever spend money in the transfer window if he can find "super-quality" players or "better than we already have". Well I personally think that it would be VERY easy to find players that are better than most of our current squad! So I found this excellent [.

By Alan Duffy

Having found himself in the middle of the Andrei Arshavin/Arsene Wenger booing controversy at the Emirates at the the weekend, teenage winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has apparently now played himself into Fabio Capello's plans for the Euro 2012 finals.

Arsene Wenger has tried to minimize the damage to Andrei Arshavin's confidence by last weeks booing by Arsenal fans when he was brought on against Man Utd, and he may have gone just a little overboard when he said: "I love Arshavin as a man and as a player. "I don't think the fans were [...]

The Arsenal midfielder Andrei Arshavin was visibly shaken by the reaction of the home fans at the Emirates last week when he took to the field in place of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and considering that he was lacking in confidence before that he can't be very keen to wear the Arsenal colours again. A few weeks [.

So transfer deadline day came and went without much fuss. Over on the live blog we had an influx of Matthews, Willem Dafoe scoring against Sp*rs, rapping Clint Dempsey, Andrei Arshavin as Rita Hayworth and then ... a signing!

Young Germanian Thomas Eisfeld (wonderfully captured here by @gooner_nate) put pen to paper on a four year deal.

Andrei Arshavin has not appeared for Arsenal since he came on as a sub against Man United, which sparked a barrage of booing against Arsene Wenger as the Russian walked on the pitch. Arsenal fans had been severely critical of the 30 year-old this season anyway after a series of lacklustre and lazy-looking performances for [.

By Alan Duffy

Sunderland 1-2 Arsenal Premier League 11th February 2012

Some wondered if Thierry Henry's brief return to Arsenal would damage his iconic status with the north Londoners, however, in netting his second winner (and third goal) of his loan spell against an impressive Sunderland side, the Frenchman has entered the realm of the God-like for Gooners all over the world.

Match Report Video By the numbers

Despite the fact this was Thierry Henry's final Premier League appearance for the club, despite the fact he capped it with an injury time winner, and despite the fact he goes back to New York after our Champions League game against Milan in midweek, it's hard to think that the Henry Arsenal story is completely written.

The Arshavin conundrum. Andrei Arshavin has caused great debate among fans (Arsenal and football alike) in recent weeks/months/years. On the one hand, he is technically brilliant and can change a game, but on the other he is dubbed lazy and incredibly inconsistent. I think that when Arsenal critics say that he is ‘lazy' or simply [.

Why are Arsenal fans so fickle? by KJ One week, Wenger is a tactical fool when he substitutes The Ox for Andrei Arshavin against Man Utd. Then he's a tactical genius when he galvanises the Arsenal troops after being 2-0 down to Villa to come back and win 3-2. He puts on three substitutes against [...

Despite living and working an Atlantic Ocean away from England's capital, Thierry Henry is planning to demolish his $9.5m London mansion in order to build... a slightly different mansion. A significant difference will be a 40ft fish tank, which will span all six floors of the property. The Daily Mail reports:

Stretching 40ft from the bottom of his house to the very top, it will take 5,500 gallons of water to fill, house 300 fish and cost a staggering £250,000 [$400,000] to build.

Following a disastrous week that included a 4-0 Champions League loss to Milan and getting knocked out of the FA Cup by Sunderland, virtually ensuring a seventh straight year without a trophy for Arsenal, manager Arsene Wenger has addressed growing calls for his resignation.

"There has been a lot of conversation about whether I will remain with Arsenal or leave," Wenger told reporters.