Rosell Says Barca Won’t Raise Offer for Cesc; Mertesacker Drops England Hint; International Stuff

By: Martin | March 27th, 2011

Greetings from sunny Las Vegas…

I may not be in the best mental or physical shape, so please don’t complain about typos or errors in this one — this is altered state, gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson-style (albeit very low-rent gonzo journalism). Having said that…

The big piece of news, for me, is that Barca President Sandro Rosell has come out and said that Barca will not increase their bid for Cesc Fabregas this summer. Speaking to Spanish newspaper Sport (long-time readers will recall that this is the same source which once identified yours truly as an authoritative member of the “English football media,” and thus know that anything they print is 100% true), Rosell is quoted as saying:

“Barca is not disposed to pay £43.9million for Cesc Fabregas next summer. That is decided and, although Guardiola demands this player, we will not pay this amount. It is impossible due to a simple reason. In football, prices are reduced each year and, if we offered Arsenal €35.1million for Cesc last summer, €50m is now impossible.

If the coach demands Cesc we will negotiate with the Gunners, but at a correct limit and without madness and, if the operation is not possible, we will wait for other opportunities. Our relationship with Arsenal is not good. The Toral issue has not pleased us. The future of Cesc is in his hands and we could only negotiate with Arsenal if Guardiola insists. Only with any sale is it possible to increase the money for the negotiations.”

A couple of things: (1) they can dress it up as prudence all they want, the simple fact is that in a world where Andy Carroll is worth £35 million, Cesc is worth at least £50 million or more — they can either offer that or shut the hell up, but they can’t pretend that we’re unreasonable for not wanting to sell our captain and best player for 50 cents on the dollar; (2) It’s interesting that Rosell is bringing Guardiola into it as the driving force behind the potential transfer, when all earlier indications were that Guardiola was much more keen on players who could fill other positions rather than a playmaking midfielder — personally, Guardiola has always seemed like a class act in this whole thing, and is a guy I have a lot of admiration for, and while there certainly wouldn’t be anything wrong with him pushing for Cesc behind the scenes, I’ve always gotten the sense that the Cesc drama was driven more by Catalan politics than football needs, so count me as a skeptic about that one; and (3) that Barcelona are still upset about the Toral thing — I can’t completely blame them for that, as I’ve said before that I wish the rules were changed to prevent us from doing that, but with the rules being what they are, I can’t really fault Arsenal too much for taking advantage of them. But would I be mad if Barcelona had done the same thing as we did to them? Yes. Yes I would.

The bottom line is that, and I may well be proven wrong, I don’t think Cesc will leave Arsenal this summer. It looks like we will end the season trophyless yet again, which will (hopefully) motivate him to stay around for at least another year. He won’t be representing Spain at a major international tournament, so he won’t have his Catalan friends around telling him how great Barcelona is 24/7. Barcelona already has two of the world’s very best playmaking center midfielders in Xavi and Iniesta, and they have a number of promising young talents coming up through the ranks in that role as well. It just doesn’t make sense from a footballing perspective for Barca to break the bank to bring in a player who, while excellent, doesn’t give them that much more than some of their in-house options. So Barca as an organization doesn’t really seem to need to buy him; Barca fans don’t want to buy him if it’s going to mean a large transfer fee; Arsenal fans don’t want to lose him; Wenger doesn’t want to sell him. For a transfer to happen, you need three parties to agree — (1) the buying club; (2) the selling club; and (3) the player. And it looks like even if (3) (Cesc) wants the transfer to happen, it seems very unlikely that the clubs can come to an agreement this summer. That makes me think he’ll probably spend at least one more year with Arsenal after this one. Anyway, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there this summer, there’s plenty of football to be played between now and then. We shall see.

In other wild transfer speculation news (I know, I know, it’s tedious but humor me — it’s the international break), rumored Arsenal transfer target Per Mertesacker has opened up about the possibility about coming to England. Mertesacker did acknowledge the prospect of playing for one of England’s top sides is “attractive,” but said that his only goal for the rest of the season is to avoid relegation with Werder Bremen, who are currently just about the relegation zone. By most accounts he’s been quite poor this season, but still seems like he’ d be up for coming to England, which would mean that Arsenal could potentially launch a bid for him this summer. And it would make sense — last summer didn’t make a whole lot of sense for him, as Bremen qualified for the Champions League and weren’t that far off the title pace. This year, they’re mid-table, just trying to avoid relegation, and are nowhere near European qualification. If Mertesacker does want to jump to a larger side that promises high-level European football, this would be a great year to do it, and his value may be slightly depressed, so it may not be a bad time for Arsenal to pounce, either. We shall see.

Elsewhere, the Mirror is reporting that Jens Lehmann is set to play in a Reserves match against Wigan, with Wenger to judge whether Jens is ready to play for the first-team, and possibly weighing starting him in the first league match back after the break against Blackburn. First of all, it’s worth noting that a lot of credible sources dispute this, and say that he will likely not play against Wigan. But even if it is true, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Almunia is dreadful, make no mistake — but starting a 42 year-old who hasn’t played a competitive match in 8 months, and who was pretty awful the last time he played for us several years ago, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, either. Once again, we shall see.

Elsewhere, ummm…there were a bunch of Arsenal players who probably played in internationals yesterday. But I honestly can’t be bothered to give a crap about anything other than the fact that as far as I can tell no one got hurt. Which is good. Some probably won, some probably lost, some probably scored. Whatever.

Sairax or I will probably be back this week, and I will no doubt be in a better mental state. Until then.

Some Related Stories:

Category: Arsenal News, Transfer News and Player Movement

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Homey_Mills

Just read an interesting quote from the recent Russia game:

"Arshavin's first half was just a catastrophe," former Soviet international Sergei Andreev said. "I feel he doesn't want to play football anymore. He was not even walking around the pitch, let alone running. He just stood in the middle, pointing his finger to [tell] others where to send the ball."

Any of that sound familiar?
Patoux21

I think that at some point in the next few years Barca wants to replace Xavi who is aging by Fabregas and that's probably the main reason we might still keep him a little bit longer. About the price Rosell should remember that Madrid bought Kaka and C Ronaldo for respectively £56m and £80m and I think Fabregas is as talented as these players and is much younger than Kaka...
Georgedb1

Rosell's tone and phrasing are as if Arsenal has been bothering and nagging him to buy Cesc since last summer. We're NOT looking to sell him so any ultimatums like, OK we're not going to give you more than X, and, Oh, well, player prices drop from year to year so you're lucky we're giving you this much, are completely out of place. Go FU*K yourself Rosell; when you want to buy a player that isn't for sale you approach a club and you ask THEM how much THEY want; thats the deal, when you want something that isn't for sale, the only way to put it on the market is to write a much bigger check than what its worth.

That being said, Cesc is EASILY worth more than 45 million - and these f*ckers all know it. Instead of playing it honestly these lisping sleaze-bags are playing mind games and politics and trying to make it seem as if Arsenal are looking to sell Cesc and on top of it all we are asking for an unreasonable price, UNBELIEVABLE.

Bartha is an organization that lacks a single man amongst them, they're all a bunch of lisping lady-boys (not that there is anything wrong with that) and to deal with people like that is impossible.
Chris

Why on earth does Rosell seem to think that a world-class player in his prime drops in price from one year to the next ?
curvaclock

because rosell is a idiot and just really wants the whole spanish sqaud at barca !
this thing can be sumed up with one song and that song is "sorry your not a winner" by enter shikari. cause rosell sorry mate your not a winner
Jose

Basically, disregarding noticeable improvement in play or other factors, contract length plays a big part in transfer price. At the end of his contract (2014?), the transfer price = 0. As we near that, particularly the year before his contract runs out, transfer price diminishes because Arsenal run the risk of not getting *anything* out of a Fabregas deal at all. So Cesc might eventually leave for $35M, but not as long as he has so many years on his contract.

Though I expect his valuation will still be in the $40-55M range until the year before his contract is up.
Sairax

Btw, turns out Gibbs pulled out with injury from the Eng U21 squad along with Lansbury, who we already knew about, so we won't have any of our players on show for their match tomorrow. Hope Gibbo's ok :s
FredJacob

What the sense in Buying Metersacer if we will have a Healthy TV 5, The way how Johan played this year he definitely deserve to start next season and Kos and Miquel are decent backups i find
Chris

Because to run a season properly we need three "100%" options at CB, with Kos being a "95 per-center" ie. very good (even very very good), but not yet there. I'm discounting Squizz in all this as I think he's awful. Miquel shows great promise, but he's still a couple of seasons off the pace in experience and presence.
FredJacob

am sure next season Kos is going to do great as the back up an Johan deserve to star along TV5
gra3

Hmm.. those comments by Rosell sure sound rather convoluted. I wonder if it's an issue with the translation?

These are quotes from another translation of the same interview from @barcastuff:

Rosell (president): "It's impossible we'd pay 50M for Cesc. Last year we offered 40M and every year that goes by, the price drops." [sport]

Rosell (president): "If we can't agree with Arsenal, then maybe next year. But first the staff should ask for Cesc. So far, they didn't."

So it seems clear to me that Guardiola doesn't even want Cesc at this point, and obviously people should be inclined to agree, considering how stacked their midfield is. Which leads me to suspect further that returning Cesc to Barca is more part of the political lunacy of their club's presidency (Laporta/Rosell) than for sporting reasons.

It's a transfer than many fans on both sides don't want to see happen for a number of reasons. Here's hoping to the fact that Fabregas will stay in London.
Georgedb1

This is all beyond a shadow of a doubt a political ploy. But the fact is that if they want Fab, they're going to have to pay dearly for him, because he is not for sale. Fab should also resist the move in my humble and biased opinion, he is beginning to hit his prime right now and if he goes to Bartha he will be spending important years of his career on the bench playing second string to the likes of Xavi and Iniesta - and I think that he realized this last summer.
fabregas

I don't think mertesacker should play for an underachieving team that won't get him anywhere in his career like arsenal.
Darren_V

haha... thanks for that, truly made me chuckle
JG

Mertesacker seems far too much like Squillaci, version 2011/12 to me. International regular, late20s/early30s playing for a European not-there-yet-but-close-to-a-powerhouse club at a major league, who is reported to be having a bad season alongside an underwhelming season at his club (much like Squizz lost his place at the tail end of 09/10). I think if we're going to get a defender this summer window (by all means not guaranteed given Wenger being Wenger, Bartley/Miquel coming up, and TV5 hopefully having a living. breathing pulse this coming season), I'd say we need some defender more in the David Luiz-mould.
mattrich

AS is also reporting that Wenger wants Afellay. He'd be a good buy, especially since Rosicky has been underperforming this season, and Diaby is injured again (right?).

I really hope Barça doesn't buy Cesc. He won't play! Barça have plenty of talent coming up through the ranks anyway. Besides, we need defenders a LOT more than we need midfielders. Puyol and Abidal are getting old, and Milito is probably gonna leave soon, anyway.
sarah

Coming in as a Barca fan, I can concur--a lot of fans DON'T want Cesc to come to Barcelona. This is not to say that he's not a great player, or that Arsenal aren't within their rights to set whatever price they think is a fair one for him, and if you asked most people, they'd agree--Cesc Fabregas is worth at least 50 million in the current English market. (If an out-of-form Torres can be worth that much, then Fabregas CERTAINLY can bring in 50 million easy.) But Barcelona (as far as I can see it) can't pay that kind of money, not for a position where we're pretty well set for the present and hopefully the future. Especially when you consider that there are positions that we DO need to shore up.

IMO, I think Rosell's bringing Guardiola into this now because when the summer comes and Fabregas doesn't (fingers crossed) move to Barcelona, he doesn't want to be the one "blamed" for the deal not going through, and it's easier for him to point to Pep and say, "Hey, he's the one who decided we didn't need the player."

Basically, from our perspective, the issue with Cesc coming to Barca is this: too much money, WAY too much drama, and--this is the most crucial part--we don't need him.
AMaps

So chief, what kind of debauchery are you indulging yourself in in LV? Cuz I can't help but imagine the Martin looking like Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover (lol). Anyway, here's hoping you come back in one piece :D.
Sairax

You're such an instigator Martin :P