Cesc Fabregas Apologises To Arsenal Fans Over Barcelona Silence

By Simon Gallagher / August 15, 2011

After one of the longest drawn-out transfer sagas of the summer - in fact of the past few years - Barcelona have finally got their man, landing Cesc Fabregas in a near £35m deal that will see him tied to the club, and its iconic number 4 shirt for the next five years. And now it seems the 24 year old wants to apologise to the fans he left behind in London. Speaking to Sky Sports, Fabregas issued an oddly melancholic response to tying up what has been described as a dream move:

I have time to talk about it and I'm sure I'll do an interview especially for them. I'm sorry I couldn't say anything in the last two and a half months, Arsenal wouldn't allow me to talk to anyone, even if I wanted to I couldn't. I'm disappointed and upset about it because I have had a great relationship with the fans over the years. It took time to build this and I'm disappointed I could lose some of them. All I have are words of gratitude. I'll never forget what they have done for me, I gave absolutely everything to the club and I think they know that but it was the right time to come back here. I'm sorry I didn't say anything to them in the last few months but I couldn't. I was very, very sad to leave, I spent one third of my life there, eight years, so I'm very sad but life goes on.

Fabregas wasn't the only one who had refused to say anything on the matter until it was completed, with a playful Arsene Wenger denying that anybody was expected to leave the club this summer, though his rumoured mental fragility by certain sections of the media seems grossly misjudged given that that assertion was obviously more a statement of his disbelief that anyone would want to leave, rather than his doubt that anyone would. What matters now to Arsenal fans is how they can cope without their talismanic captain, given the toothless display that saw an uninspiring Newcastle United team offer more than a sufficient match to them on Saturday evening, despite their own problems. And with just over two weeks until the end of the transfer window, Wenger and his scouting team have something of a challenge on their hands to bring in not only an adequate replacement for Fabregas but also a centre-half who will offer poise and power to a surprisingly weak defence and some inspiration through the middle of the park, with a midfielder and a striker likely to rank high on the club's shopping list. That has to be the only thing currently occupying the minds of the money men down at the Emirates, especially after vocal dissent from the travelling fans who made their way up to St James Park at the weekend, because regardless of the strength or size of the current squad, their current transfer dealings are hardly a statement of intent. And if there's one lesson Arsenal can learn from their weekend opponents in black and white, it's that as soon as the sharks smell a kill they'll begin to circle around the team's other prized assets. And with big-spending sharks like Dalglish and Mancini still reportedly in the market, that has to be classed as a very real threat. Incidentally, Barcelona have inserted a £175m buy-out clause into his contract, which seemingly beggars their initial resistence to move above the £27m they offered earlier in the summer for the man they have ear-marked as their star capture for the last 12 months at least.