Seeing is believing over Fabs future

My last post stressed my confidence that Cesc will be an Arsenal player next season, my views have slightly changed following the reports of yesterday morning and today. The reports of Cesc telling Wenger he wants to leave and join Barcelona have flooded the back pages, websites, blog sites, everything you can think of, the topic of Cesc leaving Arsenal has been raised. Everywhere except Arsenal.com, which is my point. Until I see some sort of proof that these things were said, and that Cesc is ready to leave us then I will have my doubts. Does anyone know where these reports came from? The credibility of this source is non existent, it just sounds like another media frenzied craze to sell newspapers. People are mistaken into believing this is a direct quote from Fabregas. Cesc has not come out to the public and said 'I want to leave Arsenal and join Barcelona'. The only time where he may of said this is to Arsene Wenger himself, and if that is the case how do we no this? The simple facts are that Fabregas will one day leave Arsenal, whether it is this season or not remains to be seen.

If Fabregas does decide to leave, then who can blame him? I certainly don't blame him for wanting to leave. I see some fans saying that Cesc is being disloyal and should stay for the rest of his contract, as he has four years left still. Are we oblivious to the fact that it is inevitable that Cesc will leave. If anything we gave him a long contract to make sure his value sustains, rather than letting him go for cheap in the final year of his contract. We should have been prepared for one day Cesc leaving us, he is a Barcelona born and bred footballer, all his friends and family live there and play there. Barcelona are winning trophies, we aren't, the only reason Fabregas has stayed as long as he has is because he wanted to win trophies with Arsenal before he returned home. The problem is that this has not happened, and Cesc surely must think that it is not going to happen next season, or the season after, so maybe it is time to leave. However until this becomes material I will assume that Arsenal have no intention of selling, and Cesc still wants to play for Arsenal Football Club.

Maybe I am in denial, and just cant see what is in front of me, but I'm a firm believer in seeing is believing, and until I see this in the flesh, I will merely brush this off as media speculation. However lets just say this does become fact and Fabregas does decide to leave. What would we be happy with? I've seen some speculation with a part exchange for Yaya Toure, or even Zlatan Ibrahimovic. What would be an acceptable fee? Would we look for £30m or is that too cheap? Personally I would except nothing less than £45m in a one off fee, or £35m plus Toure. They are the only 2 plausible deals I would accept. Anything else and I would say, sorry try again next year.

I suppose only time will tell, but I do expect this to be sorted out before the World Cup starts, I wouldn't like Cesc going on international duty with all the Barcelona players in the Spanish squad, and them egging him on to join. The next up and coming few weeks should be quite interesting.

Thank you for reading, comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated.