Cesc Fabregas is Staying at Arsenal

We all knew that it had to eventually happen and yesterday it did happen. Barcelona lodged a formal bid with Arsenal for Cesc, and if the reports I've read are true they offered £29 million for him. When you consider that he's only 23 years old, has five years left on his contract, and still four years from his prime but playing football that most players can only dream of, that is such a derisory offer.

Barcelona paid roughly twice that price for Ibrahimovic last summer and they threw Eto'o in as a sweetner as well and we all know how well that worked out for them. My 88-year-old granny could have told them that he was a risky player to sign as he had a reputation for being temperamental and only playing when it suited him.

However, Barcelona decided in their arrogance that they could get the best out of him, but they were proved wrong and ended up dropping him at the end of the season. The  team who sold him went on to claim Barcelona's Champions League title and Eto'o got his second winners medal in a row. 

However, if they were to sign Cesc, it would be a guarantee of success in my opinion as he is a better player than either Xavi or Iniesta and he will be considered the best player in the world very soon. The only players who can rival him for that title are Messi and the diver at Real Madrid, and their values are far in excess of a measly amount like £29 million.

During an injury-interrupted season, he created a goal-scoring chance more often than any player in any of the top European leagues last season and that's a statistic that is hard to argue with.

Only six players in the Premier league scored more goals than he did last season, and the only one of them who played fewer minutes than Cesc was Torres. He had only two assists fewer than Lampard, despite Lampard playing over 1,000 minutes more than Cesc and no other player could match his number of assists. All of this points to a player who is getting closer to his peak and would be a huge asset to any team in he world.

Thankfully Arsenal are fully aware of how good Cesc is and have told Barcelona in no uncertain terms that Cesc is not for sale at any price and that they will not be making any counter proposal at all.

It has been suggested that Arsenal have a price that they will accept for Cesc and that they have told Cesc this but I don't think that is the case. Cesc said that his future is up to the boss and from what I can make out the boss wants him to stay at Arsenal and that is the end of it. Regular readers will know that I don't usually curse on this blog but I have only one thing to say to Barcelona, and that's Eff Off!

In other news the rumours about us signing Joe Cole are gaining pace and according to some reports he will sign for us very soon. The same rumors are circulating about Mark Schwarzer and as I have said before he is a better goalkeeper than our current first choice.

I could live with Arsenal signing both of those players as they would certainly add strength and depth to the squad and if we could follow them up with a decent centre back things would be looking up.

That's it for today as I have a busy day ahead despite being off work. I'll be spending most of the day ferrying my father around as he can't drive with his six broken ribs and broken collarbone after his accident last Sunday. I saw pictures of the pot hole his bike hit and it was a monster.

I'm perfectly happy to do what I can to help a fan of Blackpool as I'll have plenty of time to slag him next season when we trash them twice in the league.

Don't forget to sign up to my World Cup Fantasy football here and use the code 221858-52981 after registering to enter my league. After Bradley08 asked what the prize was I decided to offer a trophy for the winner as long as I can get 100 teams in the league. At the moment I have 35 teams from 11 countries but there's still eight days before the tournament starts.

Here's a bit of what Cesc did for Arsenal last season.

See you tomorrow.