With less than 3 weeks until the start of the season, the transfer window is rife with speculation. Fabregas is at the centre of it all again, but will Barcelona make a serious move to bring him back to his hometown club?
Another summer, another Fabregas transfer saga, it just wouldn’t feel like a transfer window without it. For the past few years it’s been the story that runs from the start to the finish of the window, and it appears that this year is going to be no different. Last summer Barcelona made their first real move to take Fabregas back to his hometown club, a reported thirty-five million pound bid for the Arsenal captain was not enough for Arsenal to part ways with him last summer.
The transfer saga last summer was marred by numerous acts of disrespect from the Barcelona camp, every week a Barcelona player, executive or anyone remotely linked to the city would make a comment about how Fabregas belongs at Barcelona. This was topped off by the infamous scenes involving the Spanish national team, as Fabregas was asked to come to the front of the stage, then Puyol, Pique and Pepe Reina proceeded to pull a Barcelona top over Fabregas’ head. It seems that similar antics have rolled over from last season too, the most notable of which are Xavi’s most recent comments. Xavi claimed that Fabregas is distressed that he’s not being allowed to move back to his hometown club, after Wenger shot Xavi down for being disrespectful, Xavi claimed he did not mean to offend and that he was just acting in the interests of Fabregas and Barcelona Football Club.
‘’Arsene Wenger looks after the interests and it is Arsenal who control the situation.
Cesc signed for many years and now he has to play for them. If Barcelona want him,
they have to pay for him. When you sign for a club, you are bound to it.
It is logical to want Cesc but he is under contract to another club.’’
So in short, he’s told Barcelona, if you want him, just pay the asking price.
Barcelona repeatedly claim that Arsenal are blocking the transfer of Fabregas back to Barcelona, this could not be more wrong. Offering thirty-one million pounds for a player of Fabregas’ calibre, and let’s not forget he’s only 24 years old and still has his best years ahead of him, is insulting to Arsenal. If newspapers reports are true it appears that Arsenal would settle for an offer in the region of forty million pounds, if Barcelona are serious about bringing Fabregas to the Nou Camp, they need to cough up the cash. Whilst this transfer saga continues they are damaging Arsenal, speculation like this not only unsettles the player, but will unsettle a whole team, it’s not great for team morale to see that your captain wants to leave the club. All in all, Barcelona have created an unhappy player at Arsenal which led to a series of disappointing performances from the Arsenal skipper last season.
This all comes back to the lack of respect Arsene Wenger talked about earlier this week, when Wenger mentioned this it was in relation to comments from Roberto Mancini over Samir Nasri, claiming they wanted to sign him by the end of July. Barcelona and Manchester City are openly tapping players up in full view of the public eye and in full view of the FA, it wouldn’t be so bad if they came in with commendable offers for the players that they claim to be interested in, but this hasn’t happened yet. They’re merely trying to lower the market value of a player by making him unhappy, hoping that they’ll get the player cheaper as a result. I personally don’t think anyone has any intention of signing Nasri this summer, I think the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United are making Nasri aware that they want him so that he doesn’t sign a new contract with Arsenal, which would result in City or United getting him for nothing next summer.
I understand that in this era of football, you get quite a few cases of managers talking about other teams’ players when they’re interested in buying the player, it’s not the right way to conduct yourself, but it’s become commonplace in football now, you expect a manager to make the odd comment if they’re strongly linked with a player. But the way that Barcelona, one of the greatest clubs in the history of world football, have conducted themselves over Cesc Fabregas in the past couple of years is quite embarrassing. It seems that over the two years gone by, every notable Barcelona player has come out and commented on Cesc Fabregas and his apparent desire to leave Arsenal and join the Catalan club, I think a lot of people overlook how unprofessional and disrespectful this behaviour is.
I hope that out of respect to Fabregas and everyone at Arsenal, if Barcelona are serious about signing him, they should just pay Arsenal’s asking price as soon as possible and be done with the deal. That way Fabregas gets the move that he wants and Arsenal will be able to rebuild and install a new captain that actually wants to play for Arsenal football club. Somehow I don’t think this will be the case, I expect the transfer will happen this summer, but not until the final days of August, and by then it might be too late for Wenger to sign a replacement for him. This has been Arsenal’s problem, they lost Vieira six years ago and are yet to replace him, the same can be said for the likes of Sol Campbell and Thierry Henry, and it’s no coincidence that Arsenal haven’t won anything since the departures of these key players.
So, I’ve been writing this article pretty blindly, without any real direction, I’ve mentioned my displeasure at Barcelona’s pursuit of Fabregas, and the lack of respect other managers appear to show other clubs these days, but I guess the only talking point that really matters for Arsenal fans is: Will Arsene Wenger learn from his past mistakes? As the transfer window wears on, with just the one notable signing so far, I’m starting to doubt it.
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