Fabregas moving to Barcelona is by no means a done deal – Arsenal will presumably look for both a suitable fee and a nailed-on squad replacement before allowing the Spanish midfielder to leave for his dream move – and there’s a good chance it might not be resolved till the end of the World Cup.
Although Andrew thinks differently, Cesc’s comments yesterday make me believe that Wenger has listed a number of conditions that would need to be fulfilled before Cesc can leave so that at the very least Arsenal benefit on and off the pitch from the transaction. This would involve both a hefty transfer fee and either a player moving the other way or Arsenal signing another midfielder before Fabregas is let go.
Will Fabregas stay? He doesn’t want to. His statements on the club weren’t the ‘I want to stay here for the rest of my life’ variety, they were more along the lines of ‘I hate to say goodbye but I have to go’.
Peter Hill-Wood’s comments are equally ambiguous, but given that he had the opportunity to refute the Fabregas rumours, his exact quotes suggest that it’s a matter of price, not intent.
Hill-Wood (to Soccernet):
“It is our policy that we give the manager a transfer budget, which includes the ability to use all the money from player sales. Absolutely. He will get the money no matter how much we got from selling a player.
Fabregas might stay, he might go, I have no idea, and have no intention of making any comment on the subject.”
The first bit is obviously in response to a question about whether Wenger will get all the funds from a potential sale, but if Fabregas’ fate is to be left in Wenger’s hands, then I feel he will go if Barcelona throw enough money Arsenal’s way.
The same article that reported the above statement also quotes an ‘agent’ involved in negotiations for the midfielder. You can read the whole thing here.
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