If Arsenal or any other club had dreams of signing Russian ace Andrei Arshavin, it has now been blown to pieces. Russian Club Zenit St Petersburg announced this morning that FC Barcelona has made an official bid for the 27 year old.

Arshavin has made it no secret that he loves and supports Barcelona and his dream would be to play for the Catalan club. He was quoted saying:

"I have supported Barcelona all my life. Barcelona are my dream. I never thought I would have a genuine chance to play for the club. Let's see how the situation unfolds."

The news of Barcelona's bid would seem similar to the sound of scraping nails on a chalkboard, to the ears of Arsenal FC and other hopefuls.

The news of the bid has led many believe that Barcelona are only interested in Arshavin due to his recent success, the amount of big teams that want him and of course his outspoken desire to play at Camp Nou.

However, Barcelona vice president Ferran Soriano insists that they have been tracking Arshivin for a good while. He was quoted:

"We are interested in Arshavin. But it won't be easy to sign him because all teams want him now. Our interest isn't sudden since we have been following him discretely for a few months now. We were under the impression that he played in midfield, but now we have seen that in big games with his national team he plays on the flank. That has dispelled any doubt and this is the profile of a player we would like to sign."

Barcelona have now taken the lead in the Arshavin race and are more than likely to win his signature.

The one question that remains for Arsenal fans are does this mean Barcelona will let up on Emmanuel Adebayor? Barcelona could loosen their grip due to the Arshavin bid and try to buy the Russian alone, or they could simply try to get both Arshavin an Adebayor to join the long list of waiting Barcelona strikers.

Either way this story is expected to unfold in the coming days!