Why oh why did Arsenal turn down Fabregas return?

Arsene Wenger has helped to develop lots of star players through the Arsenal academy, but surely one of the best and most successful was the Spaniard Cesc Fabregas who was cruelly tapped up by Barcelona too early in his young career. But at least Wenger sensibly inserted a buy-back clause into the transfer agreement in case things didn’t work out in Fabregas’ hometown.

But as Fabregas himself revealed yesterday, when Barcelona gave Arsenal the contractual first refusal on their ex-captain, they didn’t even respond to the offer! Cesc said: “I feel very attached, even now, to Arsenal. My feelings for the club, well I don’t have to repeat myself, every single time we play against them, because it’s known. Whoever doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t feel it is this way, is not right. I know how I feel, my family does, and that’s all that matters to me.

Once I made the decision to leave Barcelona, Arsenal had the first option, and Barcelona had the obligation to contact Arsenal first. Then they had a week to basically respond yes or no to the buy-out clause.

“I knew Chelsea were on the side, among other clubs, but after I spoke to [Jose] Mourinho in the meantime he convinced me that it was a great place to come. The week passed, Arsenal never responded, never contacted me either, so I took it as them having enough players in their squad, so I made my move to Chelsea.

“Because I felt they wanted me the most, Jose spoke to me in a way that not many have spoken to me before, and I knew what he wanted from me. He motivated me so much in that meeting that my choice was very easy.

“I love Arsene, the man. I love him of course as a coach too. This is a decision he made. I always said that he’s like a father to me, and he will always be.”

At the time there were many Arsenal fans that were outraged when Wenger didn’t recall his prodigal son, especially as we all knew that Santi Cazorla was getting on in years and we had no ready-made replacement. Of course Cesc won two League titles with Chelsea but I am sure Arsenal could have achieved so much more with Cesc in our problem midfield area over the last few years. I really regret Wenger not taking up the offer, and I hope Arsene does as well.

Darren N

18 Comments

    1. it may be hard to swallow but cesc went with his heart and to a side thats unequivocally better than ours – i don’t see cesc is a traitor he has arsenal dna we made him and in many ways we failed him to by the looks of things. wenger gets things wrong and we must be strong and say thats if we expect to stop the rot.

      1. I have nothing against Cesc but he left and it was his choice to do so and it ends there for me. I don’t really care about after that.

        Saying we failed him is a joke though. He came into a team that was never going to challenge. If we were challenging then a 16 year old wouldn’t have got in like he did. It is counter intuitive to say the same circumstances that made him are the same circumstances for not seeing out the project.

        May be people forget how bad it hit us when he left and how the team suffered. So, like I said, nothing against him but once he is gone he is gone and I don’t really care for any chance we had if bringing him back.

  1. I think we should have gone for him this summer. He is more complete than anything we have and knows our ways.

    I think fans should be realistic about players coming and going. It is part of football. Why have a player because he tried his luck elsewhere? We poached him from Barca they wanted him back as well. You can’t blame a player for wanting to go to a bigger club and be fine with a player like Gibbs being sold to a smaller club.

    IMO if we were not going for Seri we should have tried to get Cesc back. We have an awkward bunch midfield players and could do with a more complete one.

  2. There is only one reason and that reason is big ego of Mr. Arsene Wenger… He has left many players because of his ego… RVP was again available for just 3 millions.. Damn 3 Millions… Man Utd Sold him to Fenebarche for just 3 Millions… And its not the case that we wouldn’t have afford Fabregas… If we can buy Xhaka For 34 Millions then we would have easily afford Fabregas… Just because of his ego we didn’t buy back him…

      1. in my opinion RVP is amongst the best strikers we’ve EVER had, fact is he mastered the strikers art. As fans you do yourself a disservice by the loose remarks i understand if you were deeply annoyed as indeed we all were.

  3. LOL thats a big lie and you know it Darren, there was almost no outrage when we rejected fabregas because most of the fans had one of this opinions: 1. dont take back judas or 2. we dont need him anymore;
    that was the main sentiment about fabregas and it wasnt wrong he wouldn’t have offered us the fight and grit in the midfield

  4. He might not have offered us fight and grit but neither do Ramsey or Xhaka and unlike Xhaka Fabregas doesnt have 4 assists for the opposition since the start of the season

  5. We seem to easily forget that we had just acquired Ozil when Fabregas became available. And, of course, as to be expected when bringing in a high profile player of Ozil’s stature, the best No.10 in the world at that time, Wenger had made promises of playing time for Ozil. Fabrgas wasn’t the kind of player to play second fiddle especial at th fee we were expected to pay for him. The choice between Ozil and Fabregas had to be a forgone at that time. And then the circumstances under which Fabregas left us, anyone remember? Becoming sore, failing to train, and then later unsavory comments when he finally got his move, to the extent that he became a better player at Barca because he was no longer playing the free role that Wenger had entrusted him with while at Arsenal. A role he used to disparage Wenger when he was asked compare Wenger and what’s-his-name?

    The circumstances then didn’t favour a return of Fabregas. Many of us were already pissed off with him for even pondering over a move to join Mourhino (that big mouthed id-ot) at the time Sender was still considering whether or not to make a move for him, in the light of how fast everything was moving at the time, where and how best to invest the l’ittle’ money the board had provided Arsene.

  6. Fab had his time here and left to go back to his boyhood club after several years of service to Arsenal. He always said he wanted to go back to Barca one day from the moment he joined us and i have no problem with him now playing for Chelsea. I do not view him as a Judas but just another player who wants to win trophies while being paid good money to do so. Having said that, i hope we frigging stuff chelsea today to put ourselves in a good position in the league.

      1. Yes because its just another part of the circus that surrounds modern clubs and players while us fans have no power to do anything about it. I also believe Fabregas would not have returned to Arsenal even had they activated his buy back clause.

  7. People like to criticize Xhake without considering how he plays for his national team , have you seen a Switzerland game recently ?! they play brilliant football and Xhaka is the architecture of that brilliant football , that’s why Wenger has bought him because he totally fits Arsenal’s style of beautiful game !

    I don’t know why he hasn’t been very good for Arsenal but i have a theory , i think it’s because of 2 reasons :

    1.He needs a good CDM beside him , i consider Xhaka a CM not a CDM , in a 3 4 3 system it works best with a CDM and a CM , not 2 CMs , or in Arsenal’s case a CM and a CAM (I consider Ramsey an attacking midfielder he doesn’t have attributes of a central midfielder).

    2.Lack of confidence ,Arsenal is constantly getting bashed by media , they are insulting everyone , from the manager to players , it creates a very disappointing atmosphere for the players and it will hit them psychologically and it’s effects show themselves on the pitch.

    We don’t need Fabregas , he is a CM , we need a CDM.

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