Goodbye Cesc.

Arsenal FC and Cesc Fabregas are due to part ways this summer. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much we need Cesc, he is leaving for Barcelona, and there is nothing we can do about it.

I am in no way saying we should get rid of the Catalan, but at the end of the day, Cesc deserves better that what Arsenal is offering.

You can argue that if it wasn’t for Arsene, Cesc wouldn’t be the player he is today. Looking at the current Barcelona squad, a young, inexperienced Fabregas wouldn’t get into the squad, but as these things turn out, he came to Arsenal when he was 16, and has turned into one of the most sought after midfielders in the world of football. These things have a funny way of turning on you.

Fabregas in undoubtedly our best player, and in a time when we need to keep out best players, Arsene is going to really struggle to keep our captain, and I feel this time he may fail.

Not because of our lack of ambition, that can’t be faulted, but Fabregas will want to return to his Catalan Barcelona and win trophies. We all know how close he came last summer to returning to Spain, and the majority of us all believe a similar deal was struck as that which was done with Cristiano Ronaldo and Alex Ferguson, “Give us 1 more year, that’s all I ask”.

Now that year is done, and Arsenal are in no stronger position. Hopes of strengthening our squad have once again failed, and again we have lost out in the Champions League to Barcelona, but whilst we put up a stronger league challenge this year, we still failed to win anything.

Yesterday Barcelona where officially crowned Champions on La Liga and next week face Manchester United in the Champions League final at Wembley. Why would Cesc not want to return? Barcelona are doing the equivalent of what Arsenal promised him, problem is, only one of the clubs is sticking to it’s word.

There are far too many rumours of how much Barcelona are offering this summer for Cesc. The Mirror are reporting Barcelona are preparing a £50m bid, whilst The People are saying £58m from Manchester City. I think one guarantee in all this rumour mill is that Cesc will not leave for any other club except Barcelona. The Metro are even claiming an interesting £32m plus Wenger’s free choice of upto 2 Barcelona players. Of all the deals this could be the one that interests Wenger the most, if indeed it is true.

Barcelona would of course exclude the likes of Messi, Xavi, Villa and Pique from the list, but that still leaves players such as Bojan and Busquets which could be extremely interesting. Of course these players would in turn need to agree deals with Arsenal, but with the arrival of Cesc, players such as Busquets may find themselves on the bench and a move to Arsenal may become tempting.

This is just a week after Arsene said that he will fight hard to keep Cesc at the Emirates, when asked whether he will be able to keep out captain he said;

I will fight very hard to keep him here. You always have to fight to keep a player of that quality here.

As always Arsene also spoke about how sometimes, things are not always better the other side. You only need to look as far as Alex Hleb to see an example. Now of course that is slightly different as all this ‘Cesc DNA’ baloney is splashed about to the point that Cesc could probably kidnap Guardiola’s first born son and still be called Barcelona’s son, but there you go.

What guarantees you that if you go somewhere else you will win trophies?

The biggest pride for a captain is to be committed to his club and deliver trophies with his team. A player who changes his club every time he is frustrated or when he doesn’t win a trophy, goes nowhere. I believe the quality of sports life is to be committed to your club and not just to move out when it does not go as well as you expected.

Can’t help but think this is just PR words from Wenger, whilst this is obviously a theory stuck true by himself, the same doesnt apply to players.

What is important, is that the Arsenal fans don’t turn on Fabregas. This is a player after all who has made it clear of his love for Barcelona, but at the same time, made the decision to stay at Arsenal and fight for success. What we don’t need is a huge anti-Cesc rally.

We need to step back and see that Cesc has given so much to this club, more than any other player in the last 7 years. He could have left a few seasons ago but he decided to stay, for that he must be commended. But his time at Arsenal is at an end, he will leave for Barcelona and go on to further success, something no one can begrudge him, even Arsene Wenger.