Source: Daily_Mail
Cesc Fabregas must move on from Arsenal
When Cesc Fabregas collects his belongings and passes through the gates at Arsenal's training ground for the last time, in the brutal, finite reckoning of elite football, he will do so as a failure.[LNB]Fabregas is a European champion with Spain and one of the finest midfield players in the world. There is no doubt Arsenal helped make him so but at sport's mostrarefied level, success is not measured by the enthusiasm of the reviews.[LNB]Fabregas has only an FA Cup winner's medal to show for his time at Arsenal, won five years ago in his first proper season as a regular member of the starting team. He did not even finish the game but was substituted in the 86th minute, before extra time and penalties. For a player of his immense calibre it is nowhere near enough.[LNB] Enough is enough: Fabregas is ready to call time on Arsenal[LNB]Since then, Arsenal and Fabregas have come close on numerous occasions. They could have been champions of Europe in 2006, even champions of England this year, but no medals of worth are awarded for proximity to greatness. What separatesFabregas from other famous Arsenal departees such as Nicolas Anelka, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry is that he leaves unfulfilled.[LNB]Until now, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has been able to deliver a convincing sales pitch to new arrivals. Yes, good players have left Arsenal, he might concede, before adding that they did so as Double winners (Anelka, Vieira, Henry) and champions (Vieira, Henry) and as such their motivation was to seek a fresh challenge. He cannot convincingly argue this of Fabregas.[LNB]There is the pull of his home city and first love Barcelona, true, but if Barcelona and Arsenal's places in European football were reversed if Arsenal had been celebrating another championship and Barcelona a fifth consecutive barren season who seriously believes Fabregas would still be pining for Catalonia?[LNB]So this is a watershed for Wenger and Arsenal. Even if, as some believe, Wenger secretly values the money more than the player and is trying to drive a hard bargain, Fabregas's defection is the first evidence of wavering belief from within the Arsenal camp.[LNB]Players leave Arsenal all the time. Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor went last season and Alexander Hleb the season before, but Fabregas is more important than all of them because he is central to the grand plan. He is, in fact, the embodiment of it.[LNB] Double act: But will Arsene Wenger's Arsenal crumble, should Cesc Fabregas depart?[LNB]Wenger is a Jean Brodie figure. He moulds people. 'Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life,' says the Edinburgh schoolteacher in Muriel Spark's novella, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.[LNB]Wenger takes the same certainty into his football. He does not enter the transfer market as frequently as most feel he should because he believes that a player schooled his way from youth will have a greater understanding of what is required than a new recruit.[LNB]He sincerely believes you can win the league with kids, as long as they are his kids, and when I sat across the table from him before the start of last season he was genuine in his conviction that Arsenal would break through this year. To lose Fabregas, then, will hurt greatly, for he was the poster boy not just of a club but an entire philosophy.[LNB]Spirited away from Barcelona's academy at the age of 16, Fabregas was supposed to be proof that a club did not have to buy the best players in the world but could create them.[LNB] Barren spell: Cesc Fabregas takes on Darren Fletcher and Rio Ferdinand in 2005's FA Cup final - the scene of his only major trophy in an Arsenal shirt[LNB]Unfortunately, Wenger did not identify the flaw in his plan, which is the dissatisfactionthat instinctively follows when one of these home-schooled marvels discovers the temptations of the outside world.[LNB]Arsenal's misfortune is that Fabregas's potential has outstripped his surroundings. He has grown impatient waiting for Wenger's grand design to reap rewards and has decided five years is enough.[LNB]It is different for Arsenal fans. They are stuck with Wenger's beautiful blueprint for success, having nowhere to go. Yes, they fear it may be impossibly lofty in ambition, but loyalty binds them. Players are not emotionally tied, however, and certainly not one who deserted his previous club in controversial circumstances. Face it, if faithfulness had been Fabregas's great quality, he would still be at the Nou Camp.[LNB]It is another flaw in Wenger's ideal that players who are prepared to be poached from the youth system at other clubs do not tend to be the most trustworthy servants as professionals. [LNB]Anelka, prised from the youth set-up at Paris St Germain, was soon angling for a transfer to Real Madrid. Jermain Defoe, having walked out on Charlton Athletic for West Ham United, submitted his transfer request some years later on the day his new club were relegated.[LNB]We can presume that Fabregas will soon be a Barcelona player, because Arsenal are a selling club. They lose a senior first-team player almost every summer and while the initial reaction to outside interest is often indignation, the resolution is invariably the transfer of funds.[LNB]All that remains to be negotiated here is the fee and this is the final area in which the sale of Fabregas may prove a cultural game-changer for Arsenal.[LNB]Barcelona have entered the bidding at £30million, which is the price Real Madrid paid for Xabi Alonso. Understandably, Arsenal want more, nearer £50m perhaps. Split the difference. This would still be more money than Arsenal have received for a single player.[LNB] Back home: Will Cesc Fabregas (back row, second right) line up with Lionel Messi (front row, first left) once more?[LNB]Having lost his standard-bearer in Fabregas, it is increasingly impossible for Wenger to claim that the optimum strategy is to attempt to solve his problems from within.Indeed, the absence of a quick fix is the reason Fabregas is leaving. So will Wenger at last relent and enter the market with the same gusto as his rivals?[LNB]He cannot afford another five years in the relative wilderness and he knows it. The Frenchman defied those who expected the club to be vulnerable to Manchester City this season, but few could have predicted the collapse of Liverpool under Rafael Benitez.[LNB]Next year will be harder. Tottenham Hotspur are now a Champions League club, City will undoubtedly strengthen and who knows what to expect from Anfield? More than ever, the pressure will be on Wenger to buy, particularly if he accrues in excess of £30m from the sale of Fabregas.[LNB]Such behaviour goes against his instincts, but Wenger needs to make his club secure.[LNB]'Safety does not come first,' says Jean Brodie. 'Goodness, truth and beauty come first.' Of course, Miss Brodie never had to keep Andrey Arshavin happy, as Wenger surely will once this episode is over.[LNB] Cesc Fabregas price war: Livid Arsenal hit back at Barcelona by pushing fee to £80mCesc Fabregas out... but who's coming in at Arsenal? Five candidates to replace Barcelona-bound starVilla joins Barcelona in £34m deal with Fabregas in line to follow him ARSENAL FC
