What Price Is Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas Worth?

Good morning from an overcast Dublin. Today's blog is a little later than I would have hoped for as Oleole was down for a long last night and I had to wait until this morning before I could put anything together.

The first thing for today is that the boss is back at the club as can be seen by the pictures on the club site as he took charge of his first training session of the new season. With the first pre-season game on Saturday things are already starting to get back into the groove and the addition of the players we need must now be a priority.

The club site will announce the squad for the trip to Barnet tomorrow but a few of the senior players who are back in training will probably be included with some of the younger members of the squad. It's possible that our two new signings, Chamakh and Koscielny, will be playing along with Vermaelen, Rosicky, Nasri, Walcott, Denilson, Wilshere, Djourou,   Arshavin, Gibbs and Almunia.

The one name that I didn't want to see on that list is Almunia but as nothing has been sorted on the new keeper front it's looking increasingly more like he's staying. The stories that circulated yesterday were that we had a bid of £3 million turned down by Fulham for Schwarzer and that they wanted £4 million for him. Now I know that's a lot of money for a player who's almost 38 but as it's only a short term solution for a very big problem in the team as we wait for Szczesny to progress surely he's worth the extra £1 million.

Other goalkeepers are being mentioned as well such as Frey of Fiorentina and Given of Man City. Frey's name comes up every single transfer window but as they have now signed Boruc from  Celtic I wonder if he is a real possibility now. Another name coming up is Given of Man City but I can't see City selling him only one year after signing him. There is also the matter of him being injured as far as I know and it doesn't make much sense to sign an injured player who we need in our first team immediately. As far as I know Given hasn't recovered from the dislocated shoulder he received playing against us at the end of last season but I could be wrong.

Another player linked today is 23 year centre back Cristian Zapata of Udinese. He fits the bill for the other centre back that we need but his agent has denied that any offers have been received for him which probably means he will sign tomorrow.

I'm trying to say as little as possible about the Cesc situation but with a blog called "Cesc Is God" it's hard to ignore it. Cesc's comments yesterday that "what will be, will be" are similar to what his father said the day before. Neither of them are saying he will stay at Arsenal for sure but neither of them are writing a move to Barcelona either. I have said previously that I think that the boss may have told Cesc we will do business with Barcelona if they reach a certain price with their offers for him. 

I don't think Barcelona have come anywhere near that valuation yet and I don't think they will either which means  Cesc will be staying. I'm pretty sure Cesc and his dad are well aware of that and they are hedging their bets as they wait for Barcelona to make a realistic bid. However, Barcelona are so short of money that they needed to borrow from the banks just to pay their players last month and with that I can't see them stumping up €50 million or maybe even €60 million. I'll leave it there for today.

Here's a few goals from Ian Wright.

See You Tomorrow.