ADVOCAAT PRAISES ARSHAVIN

Russian national team manager Dick Advocaat has praised the impact Arsenal winger Andrei Arshavin has had on the opening match against Czech Republic.

The Arsenal winger, who has been criticised and ridiculed a lot by the English media, was at the forefront of everything good done by the Russians in the 4-1 win over Czech Republic. It is a result that goes a long way into putting Russia on the brink of qualification to the quarter finals.

Arsenal loaned out Andrei Arshavin to Russian club Zenit St Petersburg on the final day of the January transfer window. The Russian winger was inspirational at the Euro 2008, according to the Arsenal news website.

He once again seems to be serving up his European magic at the Euro 2012 as well. Andrei Arshavin created two goals for Russia, while he was largely influential in every goal scored by Russia. Former Tottenham striker Pavlyuchenko helped himself to a goal in the last few minutes of the match. The Russians, though, were largely helped by the very poor goalkeeping by Chelsea star Cech. The Chelsea player has had an extraordinary season after winning the FA Cup and the Champions League with his club team. However, he was not having one of his best nights against Russia.

“He worked very hard and played very well. He is a very important player for us – our David Beckham. I am very positive about him. We are quite happy, we scored four goals and in any international game that is a very good result. We could have scored more goals, in fact we should have scored more as we had a lot of chances. At 2-1 we made it very difficult for ourselves so we have to get better at that because maybe a better team would have scored more against us,” said Advocaat.