excuse me? you stolen the player from their academy from a club which spend alot developing the player, he is from barca, love Barca since his childhood .. it is in his blood . it is in his blood. try to see it this way, wilshere in your academy and because you can't offer him by law professional contract till 18, Real get him just before he become 18 and give compensation of 100k.. how you will feel? and would you be happy to pay 40m-50m 4-5 years later? wouldn't you feel there is some injustice here
now you talk about knockdown price, well well, didn't you done the same with many players like arshavin , hleb and other, Zenit turned down 20m offer months before they were force to sell him to you at knockdown price, as you made the player revolting against his club. so let me get what you say correctly, when you do it, it is genius but when other doing is a disgrace !!
arsenal paid compensation for the player. the player wanted to leave, forget loyalty and all that rubbish, the player decided to transfer to arsenal and improved hugely as a player. fabregas was not guaranteed to be a future star, just look at players whom it didnt work out with such as fran merida. however, barcelona tap up players which is illegal, yet nothing is done about it.
Quite devastating to hear, but we all knew it was going to happen at some point.
Wish him the best of luck and like most Gooners I'm sure we'll all keep up to date on how he's doing at Barcelona.
Now we need to turn our attention to getting in a defender or two and another central midfielder.
Here's an emotional tribute to Cesc:
[video=youtube;PQ26T1Ws73E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ26T1Ws73E[/video]
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It's time to thank Cesc and move on. There's a lot to do out there and £35m plus the expected 23m from the sale of the ' good for 5 months a year ' wonder can buy us a lot of talent which will help us put together a pretty potent team.
we saw it last year with mascherano how barcelona made pathetically low bids in order to unsettle the player, who then becomes worth less and so they secure the player for less than what he's worth.
they may be good to watch, but off the pitch they are a disgrace to football.