Morning all.
Bank holiday weekend here and there’s nothing doing so this is going to be short. The only thing doing the rounds is the stuff about Cesc Fabregas being available for £30m from Barcelona this summer. I’m sure I read something during the week from their vice-president of sporting vice-presidents which said that he wasn’t on any list and, frankly, the idea that they’d sell him for that much when Xavi’s career is winding down and the alternative is Alex Song seems preposterous to me.
However, let’s imagine for one second that Cesc Fabregas is available for £30m. What should we do? The answer, of course, is very simple:
Bring him home!
Ask yourself this – which clubs would buy him if they could? The answer is ‘All of them’. You think any top club would pass up that opportunity? No chance. So any suggestion that we should ignore his availability – imaginary as it is right now – is ludicrous.
The idea that we could have too many good players is also quite amusing. Remember what we talked about yesterday and what we need to do to prevent injuries derailing our season? Depth of squad is the most important part of that for me. And even then you can end up with a player being Shawcrossed and their absence being nothing to do with being over-played or them being in zones of various colours. There are just some elements that are, Dangerous Liaisons style, beyond our control.
We know his connection with Arsenal and even if you didn’t like the way he left the bigger issue for me was that we knew it was going to happen and didn’t do anything to soften the blow. We sold our best midfielder, one of the best players in the world, and made no plan whatsoever to replace him.
The opportunity to go and play for the best team in the world – which just so happened to be the team he grew up supporting/living with – at a time when it was apparent Arsenal were in no state to win anything is something I don’t begrudge him one bit. Play with Xavi, Iniesta or Messi or continue to stagnate with Song, Arshavin and Bendtner? Yeah, that’s a tough choice all right.
The other thing is that if he goes somewhere else he improves that team, no question about it. Yet we’re supposed to ignore what he might bring to us because we’re still prissy over a transfer deal that gave us a profit of £35m? If that’s not cutting off our nose to spite our face then I don’t know what is.
Also, the whole ‘He might hinder the development of X’ argument is a fallacy. We’ve given young players plenty of room to grow and blossom down the years and often they’ve fallen short. The ones who did come through and have the most impact, like Fabregas and van Persie, are also the ones that grew up around the best players. Pick up the good habits and learn from those who have real quality.
We have some midfielders who, if we’re being honest, are heading towards the twilight of their careers. Rosicky, Arteta and Flamini are not the men of the future even if they can still contribute in the present, and even if Cesc isn’t the powerful, monstrous, mythical ‘DM’ everyone is shouting for, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And his signing would be no impediment to that kind of purchase too.
We have an option on him. He is one of the best midfielders in the world available (imaginarily) for relatively low price and one that is well within our budget and wouldn’t leave us incapable of doing the other business we need to do. There’s be no settling in period, no adaptation. Just immediate quality. I don’t really understand why there’s even any discussion or debate about this?
It’s simple. Just buy him – if he’s available of course – and don’t let him go make another team better.
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Finally for today, good luck to the Arsenal Ladies who are taking part in the FA Cup final. Tim Stillman has a preview here and there’s ticket info there too if you fancy going along.
Till tomorrow.
