• Arsefan101

  It’s clear that he wants to go to Barcelona and wanted to throughout the summer – the like of Puyol and Xavi etc were right – he wants to move. He isn’t going to move.

  Interesting to see he mentions that there were 2 formal offers for him.

  But it is at least honest!

• devday

  @ Arsefan101:
  Yes, it is honest, but too honest – after everything we’ve done for Cesc, making him the player he is now – as soon as Barcelona submit a bid, bang, he wants to leave.

  I am actually very gutted.

• Sarah

  Not sure… Happy he’s staying but not really happy about the statement, makes it sound like he doesn’t really want to stay but he feels like he owes us one more season… As much as I’m sure he’ll give everything for the team, the lack of any kind of comment about ‘loving Arsenal etc’ or actually wanting to stay puts a bit of a negative feeling on the fact he is staying.

• afcgoonerp

  Great decision by Cesc Fabregas, why go to Barca and be a fringe player like Henry was, Now he has committed to Arsenal his future is set, Captain of one of the biggest clubs in EUROPE!!! Come on ARSENAL lets prove his made the right decision!!!

• alex

  yap,he hs always wanted to leave,let him go; so sad that he is bein kept against his will

• Gunnersaurus

  It sounds as though he wanted to leave, but Arsenal rejected Barca’s two offers. I do believe that there is a place in Cesc’s heart for Arsenal, but he clearly wanted to leave this summer. Stories of him shedding tears after being shown a video montage of his Barca youth days and his father speaking on Spanish radio saying that Cesc should be allowed to leave is just some of the evidence that would suggest so. I reckon that it is not in his nature to demand to be allowed to leave the club. I agree with Dev that it is not a heart felt statement, but he definitely has love for the club and I hope it shows on the pitch. We need to strengthen our squad further and show ambition to win trophies if we are to have any chance of keeping Cesc next summer. Mark my words, if we don’t get a new keeper and another defender, we will struggle to win any major trophies this coming season.

• Kodjo

  Sincere yes…worrying thing is that he has not comitted himself to the club…rather an open ended statement in that when barca come calling again he will not discourage it.

  Bad precedent…we have spent resources and time developing a player and when its time to reap the fruits he wants to leave ….for what sentimental reasons????

  Cesc you knew this all along when you signed a long term contract…you made the decision to leave barca for arsenal…we will not be used…period!

  I understand the sentiment…but you always had those sentiments and you over rode them when you left for arsenal.

  If those sentiments were that important to Cesc he should have stayed at barca and rotted in the reserves…then he’d see if sentiments or common sense is better. Clearly Cesc chose common sense over sentiment and he has to be responsible for it for the duration of his contract….

  Ps honor your contract!!!! That is the least that Cesc can do.

  Be a professional about it…think about the team, if every player wanted to relocate to their country of origin what will be left of arsenal….Cesc we made you who your are today and the all the players supported you in the process. Think about the team for a minute…you are the team captain and it comes with responsibility! sentiment or not!!!

  If was Wenger i’d send him packing to Real Madrid next season. @ devday:

• Gooner Get Ya

  I am not at all happy with that statement as he is obviously very upset that we have denied his dream move. I love Cesc and he is by far our best player but I would have preferred to sell him knowing that he wanted to leave. He says he will be 100% focused on Arsenal this season but will he…really…only time will tell but I doubt it.

  Knowing AW he will probably sell Cesc next season and try and land Ozil on a free!!!

• arsenalfantohbad

  The saying is true…we arsenal fans are greedy and I must admit it.

  I saw someone saying what arsenal has done for fab4. We have done a lot yes and he has done a lot for us too but stupid wenger did not use it.

  He is a player with ambitions not just a home grown barca player. He is a man with pride too. Do u imagine the same he goes through knowing his friends back home are winning trophies and he is chilling with arsenal ‘kids’ .

  We should wake up and tell wenger to do the right thing.

  Enuf bull**it

• tito

  its good he said something atleast it kind of relax us (arsenal’s fans). But from the statement, he wish to go but wenger will not do the deal. my joy is he is staying atleast for 1 season i am very optimistic about.

• Sam

  I’m fully satisfied with his statement. It is an official communication, and there no room for emotional “love” stuff. It is an honest & factual statement, and yes, he is asking to be let go next summer… But in the meanwhile, he is 100% focused on Arsenal. It may not be to our liking, but it’s fair.
  All of us would do the same if we were in his shoes!
  BTW, who knows what will happen till next summer. Maybe we’ll win all the trophies, maybe Barca’s debts will catch up with them. Only time will tell.

• Goonerman

  i know we all expected the perfect statement were cesc would say he never wanted to leave and that he loves us but some things he couldnt say like i dont want to leave or i dont love barcelona because the fact is he does love them and he does want to go to them.

  but he could of definetley showed a lot more love towards arsenal by telling us how proud he is to be our captain and how much we have helped him to become the player he is becuase for however amazing barcelona’s academy is without us brining in a young kid with bags of potential we had to turn that potential into a word class player

  one other things that makes cesc’s statement look bad is another article on the arsenal website from van persie, he basically just speaks of his love of the cluba nd how the club works:

  “I have never stopped believing in Arsenal,” said Van Persie. “I love this club, this is my seventh year now. Arsenal gave me a chance to develop into a good player and I want to repay the Club and the fans and everyone with trophies.

  van persie could equally get into pretty much every team in the world just like cesc fabregas yet all he does is commit himself to the club and speek of his love, he has become a class player and a class person in teh last couple of seasons and maybe cesc should take a look and listen to him!

  We cant carry on about this statement though becuase we were never going to sell him for the pathetic money they offered and he has commited himself to the club for the season even if it is not the exact statment we hoped for so lets hoep he really does give 110% for the club next season and lead us to glory.

• Pete

  “We got Cesc Fabregas, we got Cesc Fabregas, we got Cesc Fabregas, we got Cesc Fabregas!”

  What matters is he’s staying for at least another season. He’s more professional than the likes of Adebayor, so I don’t think his performances will be affected. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a blinder of a season. He’s been in Spain and with their squad for nearly 4 months now, so it’s understandable that being around his home and people he’d be attracted to working there. But he must still love Arsenal too, otherwise he’d have handed in a transfer request and forced the move, so it’s important not to be too hard on the guy. There’s still a lot of football for him to play in a red and white shirt.

  Having said that, it is time for the players and manager to pull together and finally win something. Maybe the idea of loosing one of their best players might actually shake up thesquad and manager into pulling together and winning again.

  Good to have you at the club still Cesc!

• Aussie Gooner

  It wasn’t what we wanted to hear but it’s enough. Let’s face it, he’s off next year and we’ve got 12 months to hand pick his replacement. But the dick heads at Barca will have to realise that he’s not going for nix. Whack up with 50-60M and he’s yours next year. Who knows, when we win the EPL and CL next year, Barca fall further into debt and he has a change of heart. He’ll also see that the boys he’s been playing with are now men. When you think about it, what will Jack W and Frimpong be worth in a couple of years. It’s all good for the Gooners……

• walter

  iTS OBvious we have him for one year – seems like that usualsuspect guy was right – it seems like some thing prepared for him by the PR at arsenal. Should have fobbed him of for £50mill this year – anyhow next year we sell him £15 mill

• pareshpatel

  The Cesc statement just seems to confirm what has always been known. He’s under contract and he knows that unless Arsenal want to sell him he can’t go. If Barca had not been totally broke, and unable to raise any money, then they might have gone up to £80m and Arsenal might well have accepted.

  I guess at the start of it all most people simply didn’t believe what ourselves and a few other sites were saying – Barca are so deeply in financial trouble they are teetering on the edge.

  Remember that first story we ran saying that there was a danger that they could go out of business this summer. How everyone sneered. Next thing we know, all the bank loans have dried up and they can’t actually raise the money to pay the players, let alone find another £80m to buy Cesc.

  So it all stops. Because the local press are in total denial that Barca is bust they will raise the issue again and again and again, and eventually he will go, just as Vieira, Henry, Anelka, Overmars have all gone for the right price at the right time.

  But this was not the right time.

  However we have two players who could replace him – Ramsey and Nasri. Neither is quite ready – the former of course because he has been Shawcrossed, and the latter is not getting enough time in the middle.

  He’ll go eventually, and so will all the other stars. Fortunately, we’ll make a profit, Barca will sink deeper into financial mire, until they go into administration, and we have that little old production line just finding more and more and more wonder kids.

  The only thing that stops the current process is everyone else going bust.

• Bonathan

  The only chance we have of keeping him next year is if we win the league or champions league. even then, i think he’d go. Be interesting to see how much we get for him next year though. Barca were only prepared to offer a cheeky £30 mill this year so no doubt they’l play games and offer 10 mill less next year. £30 mill would still be cheeky next year in my eyes but i guess we would owe it to him to let him go. Anything less than that though and we’d have to stand firm.

• yemi

  Disappointed

• yemi

  I so much wanted him to leave. 
It will never be the same with him anymore. We will all look at him as these are his last days. He can NEVER give 100% again after denying him his move to his beloved club. 
Apart from that, even if he gives a 100%, but he makes a mistake, we will all believe its because he is leaving.

We should have just let him go and get arteta or someone else.

He should have kept shut rather than this statement.

Yes, we are greedy, but why ? Cesc is not the first player we are selling and certainly not the first going to barca so what is the difference ? If he had remained at barca, he wouldn’t have developed to this level cos he wouldn’t have gotten the kind of first team action he is getting here.

I think it all boils down to the fact that the coach and some of his players are not on the same wavelenght in terms of ambition. Cesc want to win things NOW. Wenger wants to win things if it is possible else maintain a top 4 finish, keep a good book and life goes own. The shareholders are happy, the board is happy, the fans ? Who cares? as long as they pay for their season tickets. I can’t remeber the last time i felt this bad about anything arsenal. 

Rule 1. Never keep a player against his wishes !!!
Arshavin wanted to leave russia so much that he paid part of his fees. If they had kept him, it would have been bad. Adebayawn wanted to leave, you could see it in his playing.
Cesc ain’t gonna be any different. I stand to be corrected or proved wrong.




• Senkiz

  Cesc yo talent in La liga would’nt have matured 2 da half way stage u ar. So da 4 yrs u hav on yo contract at Arsenal wil make u a super*, whereby u wil start every match on national duty. So 4get doze sentiments & build yo career. Think about dis who 4rm EPL started a game in da 2010 WC & completed it? @Senkiz.

• vj

  It really was a truthful statement from cesc. It was always clear that he wanted to leave and he has pretty much summed it up in that statement. He is a professional a an honest player so he will give it his all this season for sure. Maybe if we can win the title and beat barca in champions league final at Wembley! He might reconsider, but in all honesty it is the last season of the legendary Cesc Fabregas. Let’s hope its a good’un

• samir

  I would be worried if Cesc’s statement DID have the old “I love Arsenal” crap. Cesc is not stupid. He actually has far more intelligence than the average footballer. Cesc realises this is a business. It was always in Arsenal’s hands and the statement makes that very clear. The exact same statement will be released next summer as well if Barca dont sort out their finances and make a proper bid, instead of the insulting and derisory bid that they did make.

  To me, that is the only dissapointing part of the statement, the fact that Barca’s silly bid is given credence. I think it would have been much better had the statement read something along the lines of:

  “I have had many conversations with Arsène Wenger both in person and over the phone over the last few months and although the content of those conversations will remain private, the conclusion is that Barcelona never had the money to make a proper bid, and instead simply tried to BS the media all summer.

  “I am a professional and I fully understand that it is Arsenal’s prerogative not to sell me, especially when the attempted buyer cannot even respect Arsenal enough to make a decent bid”.

  I can understand why such wording wasnt used, however.

  I dont care if Cesc “loves” Arsenal or not. All I care about is that he is professional and gives maximum effort every time he is on the pitch.

• vj

  Forgetting about cesc where are the signings Arsene, Anfield in now a week away and we still need a CB and a GK, never have you signed 2 people in one week, so sort it out, plus it would be awsome if cesc scored the winner at Anfield but I reckon Arshavin will do it for us again

• vj

  looks like no new GK for us maybe a CB though

• AmriGooner

  I’m so disappointed about that.
  What ever he is saying about commitment for Arsenal, he will be thinking about Barcelona and the last summer with his “friends”.
  Even
  if he didn’t,the fans will always keep in mind that he has no future at Arsenal.
  Really gutted.

• Josiah

  I know we haven’t won anything for ages and cesc knows barca will win things but he needs to understand he wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as he is now if he didn’t leave barca for arsenal, he just wouldn’t get enough game time to shine and develop, it’s as if he thinks he will become some sort of, I don’t know, complete and utter gem, if he goes to barca, but in reality he won’t even get in the team, and in my opinion I think his career will take a downwards spiral like all the rest of our players who have left for Barcelona

Be A Fan On Facebook

Follow On Twitter