Fabregas has left the club

"I will never have words to say how grateful I am .. I have spent over a third of my life there."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011 ... na-arsenal

Exactly, we have to hope that he and his club succeeds, otherwise we'll lose out on some of the money.

Its only a small sum, i would rather see them crash and burn rather than put money in the bank.

Still have no idea how this deal wasn't worth £60m. Tragic failure negotiating this deal, and whoever was involved should be sacked.

It's strange that Barca is REALLY talking up the amount spent. I have to wonder if it's actually a bit of fluff and they may have spent more than they let.

@arsenalreport Arsenal Report
€2m per league title and €1m for the CL title). In total, the minimum fee Arsenal will receive is €34m, and the maximum is €39m (£34m).


@arsenalreport Arsenal Report
a winning bonus - if Fabregas wins at least two league titles and one Champions League title, Arsenal receives a total of €5m


@arsenalreport Arsenal Report
Fabregas will give up €1m of his wages every year, which will be paid to Arsenal for the next 5 years. In addition to this, there's


@arsenalreport Arsenal Report
Barcelona have released the financial details of the Fabregas transfer: €29m initial fee - €14.5m now and €14.5m in September.

******* disgusting... 29m in euros...I'm really sickened

His hammy's are strung tbh, we got the best years out of him in my opinion...he's all yours Barca.

Why are people so upset about the fee when it wont even be spent.

Why are people so upset about the fee when it wont even be spent.

Was just thinking the same thing after reading through the figures!

It's still a pitiful amount though from a principle and pride angle. No-one wants to lose a player of that quality for so little in today's market. But then I see suggestions that we should hope Barca do well so we get the full amount, and I now doubt Wenger would reinvest it fully anyway. Would've loved a huge figure to come out of all this, so we could end this with heads held high and dignity in tact. However it wasn't to be.

If Fabregas' replacement is already within the squad....then i'm going to be livid

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011 ... ootball%29


He bigs up Jack and Aaron. We'll have first option on buying him back. And we have a 50% sell-on clause for what it's worth.

When a player has expressed his desire to leave as often as Fabregas has, and then when you look at the position Fabregas would have been in had we not let him go, it's a no-brainer to just accept the £35m and move on.

This was a one-off situation (hopefully - are Toral and Bellerin catalans?) where, ultimately (and probably wrongly) the fact that he's a Catalan who started football life at Barcelona was a big factor in the apparent measly fee.

When you get a kid from Barca, and particularly if he's Catalonian, you have to accept one day that things will get awkward. It came down to Fabregas and where his heart was.

If he was a greedy ****, we'd have got £60m from Madrid.

I feel no anger towards him, just sadness that Wenger failed to take the step of signing the two or three experienced players we've been short of winning something for the last few seasons. How different would things have turned out if Arsène hadn't been so stubborn about the Xavi Alonso fee? I wonder if he regrets that now?

It really is Wenger's stubbornness that has resulted in our current situation. His refusal to accept the glaring weaknesses in defence. His determination to prove everyone wrong about the youth project. His misplaced faith in the likes of Denilson, Eboue and Diaby. His pledges and promises of change in May that turn to statements of defiance and intransigence in August.

If Cesc and Nasri leaving doesn't force Wenger into accepting that his project has failed, nothing will. This could finally be the moment when Arsène wakes up and acts on his errors or it could be the beginning of a sad, traumatic and humiliating end for him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/15/barcelona-cesc-fabregas-arsenal-tears?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Ffootball%2Frss+%28Football%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


He bigs up Jack and Aaron. We'll have first option on buying him back. And we have a 50% sell-on clause for what it's worth.

Does that mean that if we buy him back, we get 50% of the fee - making him free?

Nah that will probably only count if they sell him to another club.

I wrote this last night, and didn't manage to post it. I'm in a strange place as far as technology goes at this time.

Goodbye, Cesc.

Sad, but inevitable, and thus good to an extent.

We really needed to move on from this.

Very natural to see much emotion here: he was one of the greatest players we ever had. That's the truth,
and the "bad captain", "won nothing", "heart elsewhere" themes will not change that. We all know for years we'll have that memory, that unique mental image of his play, that vision, these passes, and that team built around him.

That has to be the final chord on an age more general than Cesc himself. An age of experiments, of some tested
ideals (on and off the pitch) - and we now have some clear answers (though I'm not sure how much is left open).

That also means - I'm afraid to say, but I must - we will be rebuilding (avoiding the T word here ). Maybe it is not the whole team - I'm sure some will be tempted to think we can just change here and there, adapt, etc. I don't think this is true. We may get really lucky in our new way, perhaps we can build on what was gained in the last years. But the fact is that cesc was the center of this team, and it always did worse without him. Which brings me to the most important thing:

I really do hope there is a serious player on his way here to take his place. I love Ramsey, and it always brings joy to see Rosicky still play football. But - come on. We must replace cesc properly. Particularly with the new possibilities up front, this will be a bit empty without a really good player in for Cesc. What "we already have" is simply not good enough - don't care about "the numbers".

And lastly, yeah, I'm probably soft in that, but I can't wish the boy anything but the very best. Love him to bits, and probably always will. I'd only want him to lose against us. Can't see how people can tell me they don't love Denis, Bob or Thiery even now. Perhaps I live in the past, I don't know. I tell myself it's a more forgiving approach to the present.

Who's the new captain? Robin? TV?

To be fair my stance on Cesc has soften since he had the chance to explain his silence, he sounded quite genuine and apologetic. He might have had the club by the balls in terms of choosing where he wanted to go and thus minimising the transfer fee but as qs said this is pretty much a moot point as we were hardly going to spend much of it however much it was.

I hope his Barca team fail miserably and I wish him no specific injuries.

http://www.skysports.com/gallery/detail ... l#photo=13

I can't lie. However infuriated I am by the whole way this played out; I will miss him.

“I will always be an Arsenal fan. I will watch them every weekend and I will go back as often as I can. I am so grateful for everything they have done for me.” -- Cesc

“I will always be an Arsenal fan. I will watch them every weekend and I will go back as often as I can. I am so grateful for everything they have done for me.” -- Cesc

"I waited many days, months, years for this moment. I return home after 8 years."

He paid some of his own money to get the **** out. Ultimate insult.

“I will always be an Arsenal fan. I will watch them every weekend and I will go back as often as I can. I am so grateful for everything they have done for me.” -- Cesc

"I waited many days, months, years for this moment. I return home after 8 years."

He paid some of his own money to get the **** out. Ultimate insult.

Would you not have done the same if you were in a similar position?

I ask that to all of you-if you were a die hard Arsenal fan and had the talent to play for Premier League team, would you say no when Arsenal came calling wanting to buy you...? All the other s*** details like tapping up, the fee, his silence all that means jack-it came down to a lifelong Barca fan wanting to play for Barca. I can accept that, especially after having seen 8 years of him playing pretty spectacular football with sub-standard players.

However much it pains me to see him in the *****' shirt... He's given us 8 years of tremendous service, and in all of those years, we haven't been able to give him one single trophy in return, apart from that FA Cup when he was still just a fringe player. Knowing that his boyhood friends are winning things for fun and making history as the best club team in football history, it's hard not to see why he'd want to go back. The fee is obviously disgusting but the Arsenal board are the ones to blame for that, not Cesc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ26T1Ws73E

Goodbye Cesc. You've been a joy to watch, a real pleasure on and off the pitch and a fantastic ambassador of Arsenal Football Club. Very sad to see you in Barça colours, but you'll remain my favourite Gunner for quite some time to come. However idle it may be, deep down inside I'm hoping you'll one day come back to finish your business here. You deserve to.

Adiós

However much it pains me to see him in the *****' shirt... He's given us 8 years of tremendous service, and in all of those years, we haven't been able to give him one single trophy in return, apart from that FA Cup when he was still just a fringe player. Knowing that his boyhood friends are winning things for fun and making history as the best club team in football history, it's hard not to see why he'd want to go back. The fee is obviously disgusting but the Arsenal board are the ones to blame for that, not Cesc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ26T1Ws73E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Goodbye Cesc. You've been a joy to watch, a real pleasure on and off the pitch and a fantastic ambassador of Arsenal Football Club. Very sad to see you in Barça colours, but you'll remain my favourite Gunner for quite some time to come. However idle it may be, deep down inside I'm hoping you'll one day come back to finish your business here. You deserve to.

Adiós

Reckon if Wenger is still in charge (God I hope not), may still be a chance when Cescs contract runs out? Long shot but improbable rather than impossible.

However much it pains me to see him in the *****' shirt... He's given us 8 years of tremendous service, and in all of those years, we haven't been able to give him one single trophy in return, apart from that FA Cup when he was still just a fringe player. Knowing that his boyhood friends are winning things for fun and making history as the best club team in football history, it's hard not to see why he'd want to go back. The fee is obviously disgusting but the Arsenal board are the ones to blame for that, not Cesc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ26T1Ws73E" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Goodbye Cesc. You've been a joy to watch, a real pleasure on and off the pitch and a fantastic ambassador of Arsenal Football Club. Very sad to see you in Barça colours, but you'll remain my favourite Gunner for quite some time to come. However idle it may be, deep down inside I'm hoping you'll one day come back to finish your business here. You deserve to.

Adiós

Is it bad that it broke my heart watching that video? I think I take football way too seriously. Was like watching back old times with your girlfriend of 8 years who cheated on you and just left you for the other guy.

“I will always be an Arsenal fan. I will watch them every weekend and I will go back as often as I can. I am so grateful for everything they have done for me.” -- Cesc

"I waited many days, months, years for this moment. I return home after 8 years."

He paid some of his own money to get the **** out. Ultimate insult.

Would you not have done the same if you were in a similar position?

I ask that to all of you-if you were a die hard Arsenal fan and had the talent to play for Premier League team, would you say no when Arsenal came calling wanting to buy you...? All the other s*** details like tapping up, the fee, his silence all that means jack-it came down to a lifelong Barca fan wanting to play for Barca. I can accept that, especially after having seen 8 years of him playing pretty spectacular football with sub-standard players.

I would never, ever grease X adopted club the way Cesc has and I certainly wouldn't pay some of my own money to do it. I'd like to think I have a little more respect, dignity and loyalty.

On another point, Fabregas can play the life-long fan card all he wants, he left to win trophies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/15/barcelona-cesc-fabregas-arsenal-tears?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Ffootball%2Frss+%28Football%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


He bigs up Jack and Aaron. We'll have first option on buying him back. And we have a 50% sell-on clause for what it's worth.

Does that mean that if we buy him back, we get 50% of the fee - making him free?

Chances are, if we decide to buy him back we'll only have to pay half of his true value...

However much it pains me to see him in the *****' shirt... He's given us 8 years of tremendous service, and in all of those years, we haven't been able to give him one single trophy in return, apart from that FA Cup when he was still just a fringe player. Knowing that his boyhood friends are winning things for fun and making history as the best club team in football history, it's hard not to see why he'd want to go back. The fee is obviously disgusting but the Arsenal board are the ones to blame for that, not Cesc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ26T1Ws73E

Goodbye Cesc. You've been a joy to watch, a real pleasure on and off the pitch and a fantastic ambassador of Arsenal Football Club. Very sad to see you in Barça colours, but you'll remain my favourite Gunner for quite some time to come. However idle it may be, deep down inside I'm hoping you'll one day come back to finish your business here. You deserve to.

Adiós

Is it bad that it broke my heart watching that video? I think I take football way too seriously. Was like watching back old times with your girlfriend of 8 years who cheated on you and just left you for the other guy.

No mate, exactly the same over here. Cesc was an exceptional player, not only because of his immense talent, but also the way he went about things. Always modest, sincere and positive, a true mr. nice guy unlike so many other people in football, even if they have a clean image (yes that's you I'm talkin' about mr. Giggs), yet at the same time a true winner who always gave it his all. I find him an incredibly likeable character, which makes it all the more painful to see him with those sneaky Catalonian *****.

I adored Cesc, and even now he's at that odious club, I'll always have a soft spot for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZovQocCC0c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

LEGEND.

Get a room.

Not possible, he's in Barcelona

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... ml?image=1

Lulz

I've tried to remain mostly quiet on this whole thing, but i may as well break my silence now...


It's easy to forget how long Cesc has been with us. What other 24yr old in club history has ever been with us for so long? I mean...he was 2 seasons away from earning a testimonial. You don't see that often.

I found it funny watching that video highlighting his career here because you can literally see him maturing. He starts off as a goofy looking, scrawny teenager who celebrates every goal as if it sealed a trophy. Then over time he begins to grow up...get bigger, and acts more maturely.

Personally, i don't feel any ill-feelings towards him. I can't say i wish his club more success, but i hope it's what he was looking for.


And on a different note, people need to stop projecting their fans perspective onto players. We are entirely different breeds. To say he was disloyal is unfair...he gave us 8 solid years, and a heap of great matches/memories. But apart from the money, what did he get in return? He's a footballer...a paycheck is certain for all of them, but the best want trophies.


Think of a trophy as a promotion at any other job. Sure you can stay in 1 job for 10 years and never get a promotion...or you could move to another job, and be almost guaranteed one within a year.


or think of yourself as a professional footballer playing for say...inter, but you're also still an Arsenal fan as you are now. Are you not going to want to play for arsenal, even though you might have just about everything you want at inter? Of course you will.