Thursday 21 July 2011

Alexis Sanchez, Cesc Fabregas

It seems at last that the summer struggle to land Chilean star Alexis Sanchez is over. Barcelona confirmed they have had an offer accepted and will officially announce his signing over the weekend.  A couple of interesting points of note. The original fee is only around £23m and with add ons will rise to around £34m. That strikes as good business for Barcelona but you have to assume Udinese came out looking well to. It's a lesson to the money orientated Man City top brass. Udinese could of held out for more and forced Barcelona to pull out their interest. But everything was amicable Sanchez gets a wonderful chance in his career, Barcelona get one of their top targets and Udinese have time and funds to rebuild and invest some of his fee.
The second point of interest is what does this mean for Cesc Fabregas. Pep Guardiola announced a transfer budget for the summer and it was somewhere around 40 million euros. I forget the exact figure. By signing Sanchez do Barcelona have enough to bid around £35m which may be enough to persuade Arsenal to sell him. I agree with Barcelona's valuation of Fabregas has decreased since last summers attempts to sign him. He didn't cost Arsenal anything and he has given the club loyalty. Now he sees that if he waits for Wenger get it right his time could be over. These young players who come to England as teenagers can not be blamed when they reach the age when they want to move on. Wenger should feel pride in the player Fabregas has become and give him his blessing and a message in his ears. Go and make that team your own.

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