So, Pep Guardiola promises to battle for a Fabregas deal up until 31st August and says that Barcelona has enough money stuffed down the back of the sofa to do it.
Except of course that their idea of enough money has so far been way short of what Cesc is worth and Sports Director Andoni Zubizarreta says that their number one priority is signing Alexis Sanchez.
All of this they describe as approaching Arsenal and Fabregas with ‘complete respect’. What complete rubbish. They won’t respect Fabregas or Arsenal by paying what Fabregas is worth and they will leave Arsene Wenger worrying about needing a last minute transfer deal to replace him, so screwing up the club’s transfer strategy. Barcelona are just trying to get the pressure Arsenal into giving up Fabregas for less than he is worth. Well fair enough, they’ve got their job to do, but please don’t call it respect!
Fabregas doesn’t say anything decisive publicly because he doesn’t want to offend either manager. It’s a mess and it makes it very difficult for Arsenal to know what they need in midfield.
Meanwhile, we still don’t have the signing we need at the back. The Mirror has reheated the Cahill story today, although only as a throw away line at the end of their Fabregas piece, and elsewhere suggestions are that Arsenal have baulked at the idea of paying £20 million for Phil Jagielka.
Jagielka surely can’t be worth £20million and yet this summer we’ve already seen Phil Jones move to Manchester United for something over £17million and Jordan Henderson go to Liverpool for £20million. So maybe in this crazy football world he is!
Kyle Bartley has been quoted as wanting first team football at Arsenal and you can’t blame him for that. He wasn’t one of four central defenders to go on the far east jaunt and it isn’t clear where he stands relative to Miquel.
Given that Arsenal did put in a big bid for Jones, I assume that Wenger is in the market for a central defender. That would make Bartley sixth or seventh choice, so hardly surprising that he’s making some noise.
After last season’s performance I suspect most Arsenal fans would move him above Squillaci in the pecking order and some are beginning to wonder about Djourou.
Oh for goodness sake, now I’m debating who our seventh choice central defender is! Bring on some real hard news and some football.
