By Fab4.
Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas has said he will only leave Arsenal for Barcelona, he is happy at Arsenal and is in no hurry to leave but he wants his future sorted out before the World Cup begins. Que the ‘Cesc to sign for Barca’ hysteria. You will no doubt read a lot of headlines claiming ‘Barca on alert as Fabregas puts Arsenal future in doubt’ and such-like. But the truth is the latest Fabregas interview tells us very little we didn’t know already, it just confirms it.
Here is the quotes from the interview. There is also a short video below but it’s in Spanish.
‘If I decide to leave Arsenal, it will be to wear the shirt of Barcelona. I don’t know when this will happen though. I’m very happy at Arsenal. I’m in no hurry to leave the club,’
‘I want to make a decision about my future before the start of the World Cup. It’s impossible to perform at a tournament like the World Cup if you’re not fully focused on the sporting aspects of the game. I don’t want to be distracted by transfer talk.
‘Barcelona are still playing for the Liga title and I’m still an Arsenal player. It would be a lack of respect to discuss a transfer now. No candidates for the Barcelona presidency have approached me, so I don’t feel used.’
Nothing new really, certainly nothing we didn’t already know. The key points to the Fabregas quotes are these:
- He will only leave Arsenal for Barcelona. – We knew this already.
- He is happy at Arsenal. – He has always maintained this, and is unlikely to say otherwise even if he was unhappy.
- He wants his future sorted before the World Cup. – the same goes for any player. All players re-evaluate their career at the end of every season and every player would rather not be distracted by transfer talk during a World Cup.
I wrote a piece on how i think we should use the money if Fabregas did leave this summer and got a bit of a hammering for it. Some fans saying i shouldn’t be writing about Fabregas leaving as he will stay at Arsenal, how dare i suggest our captain will leave us, who says he’ll go to Barca, why not Real Madrid, etc. It seems that I, unlike some Arsenal fans, have already come to terms with the fact that Cesc WILL leave us one day for Barcelona. It’s inevitable and Cesc himself has said on several occasions he will return their one day. The only question left is when.
Some Gooners will worry that he is even questioning where his future lies for next season, but this is natural. He has said the same thing at the end of the season for 2-3 years now. This latest statement doesn’t mean he is more likely to leave this summer than any other in recent years. Cesc will be interviewed several times over the coming weeks and will no doubt have to discuss his future on each and every occasion. The Cesc-to-Barca stories wont disappear until the day it eventually happens, the same happened with Henry, so we should just sit back, ignore the headlines and enjoy Fabregas being an Arsenal player while it lasts.
I personally think he will stay at least one more season. This is an important summer for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger and i think Cesc will give Wenger the chance to get it right. Basically if Fabregas is still playing with Silvestre and Fabianski next season, expect to see him in a Barca shirt this time next year!
Here is the video of some of the interview. If you know Spanish, knock yourself out!
