by Nia Griffiths

The walking mystery that is Andrei Arshavin looks as if he could be considering retirement.

After Zenit St. Petersberg released Arshavin, it seems he no longer wants to continue playing, which, at the age of 34, wouldn’t be too extraordinary.

The forward, who spent four years with us, was renowned for blowing hot and cold. The first couple of years were good – in his second season with us, he featured 62 times and assisted 22 goals, scoring 13. However, in the final couple of years everything went very swiftly downhill and the bloke looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else but at Arsenal.

Andrei Arshavin Arsenal
Arshavin scoring against Barcelona (via Google)

We loaned him to his first club, Zenit, in 2012, who we eventually ended up selling him back to in 2013.

Zenit have now chosen to release the eccentric Russian.

When asked about his future in football, he was his typical – somewhat bizarre – vague self and said, “I have mixed feelings and emotions at the moment. I don’t want to speak about what has not happened yet and what is not certain to happen in the future.”

Of course, I’m sure like most Arsenal fans, the news makes me a little sad.

One of my favourite moments as an Arsenal fan is that goal against Barcelona. I don’t want to remember the years where he looked tired and bored – I just want to remember that feeling when he curled one into the net to put us 2-1 up against the best team in the world.