Do you remember back in July?
That oil well was leaking, there was a bit of sunshine, some boring tennis and there was some sort of football tournament petering out in Africa.
Despite spending longer celebrating after the final than he did playing in the world cup, Barcelona were all about Cesc Fabregas this summer. Even though the national side was pretty much Barca players and Cesc couldn’t crowbar his way into that midfield the Catalan club decided they needed him. The only problem was the slight stumbling block that he’s got a lengthy contract with Arsenal and they aren’t massively keen on letting him return to his native country. Which is fair enough. He’s their captain, a massively important player for them and a pretty good player too. So they swatted away the initial approach and thought that was that. Done and dusted. But Barca was, and still is, like a dog with a bone. Even though Arsenal have told them they’re not interested in letting him go.
Fabregas innit
‘We immediately and resolutely told them once again that we have no intention of selling our captain,’ said a club statement at the time.
‘Barcelona have publicly stated that they will respect our position and we expect that they will keep their word,’
If it’s not them putting in another bid for him it’ll be the chairman/players/former players piping up in the media about how fantastic the move would be for everybody. Arsenal don’t share this view point though and have become tired and a little bit fed up with this. And for standing up to the Spanish giants and doing what was right and fair we’ve all tipped our hats to them, patted them on the back and give them a hearty well done.
So, is it not something of a double standards when Arsenal seem to be spending a lot of their time making noises in the media about signing Schwarzer given that back in the Springtime “There was interest from Arsenal in May. Their bid was refused. We have not had any more bids and we wouldn’t encourage any.” Said Sparky when he first arrived at the club.
Mark Schwarzer has a bit of a shout
Only for them to pop up again last week, according to media reports, offering exactly the same in exchange for the ‘keeper. Again for Hughes to tell them early in the week “From our point of view the situation has not changed.”
And he spelt it out again just before the United game “I don’t know if Arsenal are trying to disrupt him. There are many things clubs, players and agents do to unsettle players.” And then to draw a line under all this tapping up and unsettling of Schwarzer once and for all, Arsene said yesterday “It’s important we do not start saying what we do and they say what they [Fulham] do. I believe it has to be as quiet as possible.”
So that’s that then. He’ll only make a bid if we’re happy to let him go. Nice one. We can all move…oh…hang on a minute…
That’ll be the papers and the web full of stories and quotes from Seaman and Wenger again banging on about signing our lad again.
Still, well done for being the bigger man when Barca came knocking Arsenal…
