Forget Barca - if Fabregas really wants to win things next year he should go to Real Madrid

By Darren Lewis

Published 10:44 26/05/10

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Forget Barcelona.

If Cesc Fabregas really wanted to win things next year he would go to Real Madrid.

Yes, they may be the hated rivals of the Catalan club where he began his career but Jose Mourinho will be the man next season to break the stranglehold on Spanish football that Pep Guardiola is currently enjoying.

The theatrics surrounding Fabregas, his dad, his dog and everyone else pleading on his behalf for Arsenal to release him from the five years left on a contract that he is utterly obligated to fulfil, are right up there with the most tedious of the footballing summer soap operas that we have seen.

You all know the details. Barca want to pinch him for around £45million. Arsenal don’t want to sell for any less than around £60-70million - which Barca cannot afford.

Yet the bottom line is that Fabregas has been fatally unsettled and, should he fail to regain his focus after - or maybe during the World Cup - he may never be the same player again in an Arsenal shirt.

All the more reason why Arsenal should stand their ground and squeeze as much as they can out of Barca. They should line up some new players to wheel in once the midfielder they nicked for just £500,000 as a 15 year old is gone and they should plan for life without him.

Then they should sit back and watch as Fabregas’s trophy drought goes on while Mourinho’s Madrid clinch La Liga.

The Inter Milan boss is driven by his insatiable desire to complete football’s equivalent of the Grand Slam - the title in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain,

It has never been done before and yet, judging by the impact that the Special One has had at each of his last three clubs few will bet against him being the first by next summer.

The constellation of stars currently assembled at the Bernebeu will, for sure, be broken up in order to accommodate workers once Mourinho has ended the waiting and signed a four-year deal there.

And even if Chelsea and Liverpool don't release Ashley Cole and Steven Gerrard he will recruit the men to end Barca’s domination of the Spanish title.

It will be fantastic to watch as Barca, reinforced by the recruitment of David Villa who - quite simply - is in a different league to the overrated Zlatan Ibrahimovic, will not give up without a titanic fight.

But I can see Real prevailing. Which is why Arsenal could yet have the last laugh in this protracted battle which quite clearly is heading in just one direction.

The Premier League has had so many players like Fabregas before, who have believed the grass is greener. For every Thierry Henry, who did go on to win the title and the Champions League at Barca, there is a Michael Owen who quit Liverpool for Real Madrid five years ago only to see the Reds lift the Champions League the very next season.

As they did so Owen picked up splinters in his backside on the Bernebeu bench.

Yes, Fabregas’s former skipper Patrick Vieira lifted the title with Inter but what about Alexander Hleb, who quit for Barcelona only to publicly admit on struggling to get a game that he should never have done so.

Everton fans will remember Thomas Gravesen, who believed Madrid was a better bet than Goodison Park, only to sink without trace in Spain and eventually return to Everton on loan from Celtic.

So although some may be quick to paint a picture of gloom and doom with the impending departure of Fabregas, the risk remains entirely on the part of Cesc himself.

The players he is leaving behind are improving hand over fist and Arsene Wenger himself finally admitted, even before the season had ended, that he would be making experienced, battle-hardened reinforcements a priority.

There are players that can slot straight into Fabregas’s position thanks to Wenger’s penchant for players to play in the hole (Nasri, Arshavin, Ramsey when he is returns to fitness) and the show most definitely will go on for Arsenal.

Indeed who is to say next summer it won’t be Fabregas watching on TV as his former Arsenal side take on Real Madrid in the Champions League final.

What an irony that would be.

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