Arsenal have had many great players leave them over the years.
The Gunners are one of the biggest clubs in the world, but there was a period when they couldn’t retain their best players.
Arsene Wenger was forced to sell several big stars in the years following the construction of the Emirates Stadium.
Cesc Fabregas was one of them.
How do you feel about Cesc Fabregas? Is he an Arsenal legend?
Cesc Fabregas says Arsenal refused to re-sign him
Fabregas was one of Arsenal’s best players in the Emirates Stadium era.
The Spaniard was named as the captain by Wenger and produced multiple incredible performances in the famous red and white during his time at the club.
However, in the summer of 2011, Fabregas decided to leave the club after Barcelona came calling. He was desperate to return to his boyhood club, and Arsenal reluctantly let him go.
In the deal to sell him to the Catalans, Arsenal included a clause that gave them the option to re-sign him.
In 2014, when Fabregas was ready to leave the Camp Nou, he thought his beloved Arsenal would come in for him, but they never did.
He said on CBS Sports: “Arsenal had a clause, a buyback for the same price that Barcelona bought me for.
“I spoke to the president of Barcelona, and even though they were like, ‘No, no, you have to stay here, there’s a new coach coming in and let’s see how it goes in preseason, etc.,’ I made up my mind already, clear that I needed to go somewhere else, another challenge.
“And that day, a Saturday afternoon in London, I met Txiki Begiristain and two hours later, I met Jose Mourinho, you know, Man City and Chelsea. And it’s true that after meeting with both proposals and having left the meeting with Jose, I looked at my agent and I said: ‘That’s it, that’s where I want to go.’
“Because Arsenal didn’t take the clause at the beginning when I was going to leave. I thought I was going back to Arsenal. That was my thought and what I expected at that moment. But when I spoke to Jose, and I saw the refusal, not the refusal, they just didn’t come back.
“They had a week. Arsenal had a week to respond, you know, to take the option or not. They never came back, they stayed quiet.”
Would Cesc Fabregas be your number one pick to replace Mikel Arteta at Arsenal one day? If not, who is?
Arteta will leave Arsenal one day. Who should replace him when that happens?
The real reason why Arsenal decided against re-signing Cesc Fabregas
Arsenal fans would’ve loved for their club to re-sign Fabregas in 2014.
The Spain international was still one of the best midfielders in the world at the time, and he was in his prime. However, Wenger, who branded Fabregas as ‘world-class’, decided that he didn’t want him back because it would’ve set a bad precedent.
The legendary Arsenal manager said in 2020, as per The Metro: “It was general guidance for me to make the players realise that if you leave here, you don’t come back.
“It was a way to retain the players who wanted to see if the grass was greener elsewhere. I did it for Thierry Henry, Sol Campbell, and Jens Lehmann, but they were different.
“The young players who left, I didn’t like to do it.”
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