An old English saying is “you reap what you sow”. In our case we only sow penny pinching bargains, and hence Cesc Fabregas is probably off and who can truly blame him? When he looks around him, and sees he has to play with and carry team mates like Denilson, Walcott, Silvestre, Vela, Bendtner, Almunia or Fabianski etc it’s no wonder that the calling from Barcelona is so tempting. It says a lot for him and his loyalty that he has already resisted their overtures for three years, because if I was as talented as him, and surrounded by such dross, I would have gone years ago.

I know the club will come out with the usual bulls**t:- “we tried very hard to keep him” but the “call of his hometown club was overwhelming” etc. The reality we all know is he would have stayed for probably at least another two or three years had Arsene Wenger invested in quality proven players to play with him, instead of his obsession with 17 year old supposed wonder kids primarily from the French league. Why should Fabregas dedicate his own entire career in babysitting youngsters at the expense of never winning any major club honours? It is simply too much to expect only one player for the majority of the season to carry an entire team on his own shoulders, and hence his leaving is no great surprise although obviously bitterly disappointing as a fan.

We can only wish Fabregas well and thank him for the wonderful service he has given us, and just hope something good will come out of his departure. That for me would be a complete change in direction from only nurturing youngsters, and to start behaving like the big club we were told we would be in our new stadium by actually competing for some of the world’s best players in the transfer market. Either that or a change of manager, if the current one is even now still too stubborn to see the route he has taken the club leads to a dead end.

We have simply become a feeder club for Barcelona, and mark my words next summer they or another big club (who view us as a selling club) will probably come back for Van Persie (if not sooner!) and any other player who may catch their eye. The dross will remain, secure in the knowledge that their extremely generous contracts won’t be matched at any other club and hence we will be stuck with the leftovers. Meanwhile other clubs will continue to cherry pick our best assets ensuring we remain forever in also ran territory whilst under Wenger’s reign.