Wish we had the freedom to give him the freedom to roam. Think we'd see something different.
You're right though. He's now conditioned to slowing the ball down and playing it backwards and sideways. And if he does do something a bit different, there's nobody on his wavelength.
That said, he can't even pass at the moment, such is his confidence.
It's better to burn out, than to fade away.
Or he could stand as a shining example of what can go wrong, that no matter how talented you are you can't relax. Sport is littered with guys like this, masses of talent, but for one reason or another, never win anything in the majors.
The question of whether he cares or not is a subjective one, some games he does try hard, though the tightness of his shorts suggests someone with a fairly relaxed attitude to training. It's an attitutude that's probably as much physical as mental, some people just don't train well, but that's not to absolve anyone who can't stay fit.
Confidence is clearly an issue. But to get the best out of him we'd need to give him a free role, and absolve him of defensive duties. And I doubt this is something we can offer. Our wingers need to do huge amounts of work backwards and forwards. This is true whether we have conventional fullback who push up high, or stopgap fullbacks who struggle to cope with opposition wingers.
As for Arshavin himself like gary Neveille said let him go because he does notcare about the club, the fans andhis motivation is gone we can't afford to carry players now with the sqaud as it is.
Wenger sell him this week but he won't so keep him for the summer.
think he could suprise us in the CL though.
Unless you've asked each fan what they were booing at it's very hard to say whether it was aimed personally at Arshavin but people's patience with him is (understandably) wearing thin. The reaction near me was a clear boo when his name was read out, it sounded to me like it was directed at him. It certainly sounded like it was aimed at him and Arshavin clearly thought it was. It was an idiotic reaction because as you often say on here we need to get behind our players no matter what. The booing for the substitution was fair enough because it was the wrong decision and that boo was clearly aimed at Wenger. The reaction to Arshavin's name was out of order. As for him being professional...he's also human and these things clearly have an effect as they did on Eboue when the crowd getting on his back only made him play worse.