Arshavin eyes return to Russia

The Russian international joined the Emirates Stadium outfit from Zenit at the beginning of February for £15 million, and enjoyed an explosive start to his Premier League career, netting six league goals in 12 appearances, including four against Liverpool at Anfield.

However, the 28-year-old is an icon in his homeland where he spent nine years at Zenit - winning the Russian Premier League, Russian Cup and UEFA Cup - and has admitted he would like to return there one day and see out the remainder of his playing career.

"I played for Zenit for a long time and now I want to play abroad and then return to St Petersburg to finish off my career there," he told Radio Zenit.

Arshavin was forced to recently deny suggestions that he would be heading back to Zenit sooner than expected, after reports claimed the diminutive playmaker was to be offered a lucrative deal to re-sign for his former club.

The player had revealed his shock and horror at the hefty amount of tax being deducted from his Arsenal salary.

And the news was thought to have prompted Zenit - who are backed by the largest oil and gas company in the world - to plot a big-money move to lure Arshavin back to his homeland.

NEWS: Zenit to offer Arshavin lucrative return?

“I do not consider it necessary to comment on," he told Sport Express. “It is just not a topic for conversation.”

"I spent a week in St Petersburg training with my former club Zenit. Everybody was quite kind to me. I cannot say that I communicated a lot with anyone just a bit with everybody.

"I hope that these trainings in my former club would be useful. In any case they were better than a week of doing nothing.

"I don’t think that the attitude of people in St Petersburg has changed when I left. As far as I can see they like me equally even though I am playing in a different team now.”

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Gregg Davies

Gregg Davies is the Chief Sub Editor of FourFourTwo magazine, joining the team in January 2008 and spending seven years working on the website. He supports non-league behemoths Hereford and commentates on Bulls matches for Radio Hereford FC. His passions include chocolate hobnobs and attempting to shoehorn Ronnie Radford into any office conversation.