News broken on a late-night Catalunya radio station yesterday is a report that Barcelona F.C. have reached a preliminary agreement with Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas, Sport.es (English Translation via Google Translate) says. The radio show went on to say that Arsene Wenger will not prevent Fabregas’ departure from the club, and also suggested that Arsenal were prepared to accept a bid that is lower than the reported bid of £30million that Barcelona made last summer.

This annual soap opera between Barcelona F.C. and Arsenal over the love of Cesc Fabregas is an unwelcome, if not unexpected, situation for most Arsenal fans.

For the past several summers we have heard players like Xavi, Puyol and Messi trying to woo our captain away from the Emirates. These reports were discarded with only mild concern, as Arsene Wenger stated boldly each time that no, Arsenal had no intention of selling Cesc Fabregas.

This latest episode is very troubling, however, because if Arsene no longer intends to stand in Cesc’s way it is very likely we have seen the last of Fabregas in the Red and White of Arsenal.

What’s even more upsetting is the message that Fabregas’ departure would send to the rest of the club, and to the fans. There has been suggestions that Samir Nasri is waiting for Arsene to signal his intent to bring in experienced talent this summer. A departure of this magnitude would not be a reassuring sign of things to come at Arsenal.

It bears remembering that this report is only from one radio station, and has not been confirmed by any other source. Indeed, Wenger’s reported willingness to let Cesc Fabregas leave would be an abrupt about-face from Wenger’s previous statements, where he has stated that he hopes to keep Fabregas, and expects Cesc to honor his contract.

In other news, Arsenal apparently had a £16million bid for Blackburn defender Phil Jones accepted, but the player chose instead to join Manchester United, who had made an identical bid for the player.WeAreTheNorthBank.com reports that Liverpool, as well as United and Arsenal, were in line to sign the English U-21 International, but Jones was reported to be at United today to sign with current Premier League Champions.

This represents both a positive and a negative in my opinion. On the positive side, Arsene was ready to break his piggy bank to sign this player. Jones is young (aged 19 years), reasonably big (1.80m tall) and best of all, has a respectable amount of first team experience in the EPL. Also, many Arsenal supporters would list his English nationality as a positive sign that Arsene is looking in the right places.

The big negative is obviously that Jones chose Manchester United over Arsenal. Attracting young players is supposed to be the one area that Arsenal trump the other big English clubs, so the fact that Jones chose to pursue his career elsewhere is somewhat troubling.

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Thegunninghawk