Cesc Fàbregas

[Mufassir08 2,400]

Mourinho: "@cesc4official is a great player that gives a new dimension to our team is unlike Matic, Ramires and Oscar" #CFC (Marca)

Mourinho: "When buying @cesc4official I was looking for a certain profile of central midfielder and with him I will have it" #CFC (Marca)

Pivot!

Thats music to my ears.

[Jype 6,398]

Just visited some Barcelona forum to read what they think about the transfer and I was shocked, it was almost identical to our Torres thread. The people were calling him a cancer for the club and just seemed so happy to see him gone. Amazing really, because at least statistically he was definitely one of their best players in his three seasons at the club despite mostly being played out of position and Barcelona's tiki-taka not suiting him well at all.

I know he always went out of form in the second half of the season but fucking hell, saying he was the cause of all their problems in the last three seasons is taking it a bit too far. Spoiled bunch of cunts that lot.

[Pizy 18,864]

ArseGod

A proper name for deluded fans like him

I really want seeing him act like pivot in Spain against Chile. How he compete against Chille midfields who have same pressing style as EPL's teams.

But i bet Del Bosque learned nothing and still using slow Xavi instead younger version of him

I doubt Cesc will ever be playing in the middle of the park again as long as Del Bosque is in charge. If he starts it'll probably be as close to goal as he can be.

[Ze Mario 638]

I doubt Cesc will ever be playing in the middle of the park again as long as Del Bosque is in charge. If he starts it'll probably be as close eto goal as he can be.

Yeah, as i stated earlier that he'll learn nothing from abomination against Oranje.

Well he said he'll using torres, or villa, or costa or fabregas as Spain's front line so maybe that will be close to impossible.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

Just visited some Barcelona forum to read what they think about the transfer and I was shocked, it was almost identical to our Torres thread. The people were calling him a cancer for the club and just seemed so happy to see him gone. Amazing really, because at least statistically he was definitely one of their best players in his three seasons at the club despite mostly being played out of position and Barcelona's tiki-taka not suiting him well at all.

I know he always went out of form in the second half of the season but fucking hell, saying he was the cause of all their problems in the last three seasons is taking it a bit too far. Spoiled bunch of cunts that lot.

Hardly surprising. Many Barcelona fans have never warmed up to him. They think that his "Barcelona DNA" got "corrupted" by PL. He plays too directly, isn't that good at Barcelona's tiki taka. Barcelona fans are blind to Xavi and Iniesta's abysmal stats. Xavi in particular had countless poor games last season, but Cesc Is the one they blame for the club's results.

Iniesta had 3 goals ans 7 assists in 27 games in 2013-2014 season.

Xavi had a total of 3 goals and 2 assists in 26 games.

Fabregas had 8 goals and 13 assists in 28 games (and that's considering the fact that he was played out of position)

I'm not surprised that Fabregas had a relatively poor second half of the season. I would too, if I realized that no matter how well I played, I would be benched in favour of Xavi and Iniesta. In the first half of the season he was arguably their best player. I think he finally realized that nothing is going to change for him at Barcelona.

[didierforever 7,349]

Just visited some Barcelona forum to read what they think about the transfer and I was shocked, it was almost identical to our Torres thread. The people were calling him a cancer for the club and just seemed so happy to see him gone. Amazing really, because at least statistically he was definitely one of their best players in his three seasons at the club despite mostly being played out of position and Barcelona's tiki-taka not suiting him well at all.

I know he always went out of form in the second half of the season but fucking hell, saying he was the cause of all their problems in the last three seasons is taking it a bit too far. Spoiled bunch of cunts that lot.

thats not fair to the barca fans, to be honest. they are absolutely right in saying cesc was a "cancer" to barca. barca were in cruise control. their tiki- taka with the 4-3-3 was demolishing every thing in sight. then comes along cesc. in a few matches itself it was pretty evident that cesc was a mis-fit for their style of play in mid. they tried him instead of xavi, it failed. they shifted iniesta on the wing and put cesc in the mid, it failed. pep changed a whole system simply to accomodate cesc. from a stable and established 4-3-3 they went to 3 at the beack (even against us in the 2nd leg, they were 3 at the back).

next season, to accomodate cesc alcantar does not get the required time to play, which in short leads to him being sold while keeping cesc. the player who was supposed to be their heart and sould for the next foreseeable fufte, instead turned out to be their biggest downfall. he was a direct replacement for xavi but the most ideal and perfect player for that was sold (alcantara). cesc has individually set barca 2 or 3 years back. from winning 2 CLs, 2La ligas, and 2 copa del rays in the 3 years before cesc's arrival, they have won just a la liga (courtesy of JOSE and RM's bickering) and a copa del ray.

hence, i say that its very unfair to say that barca fans are being unfair or unreasonable or acting like a spoilt bunch.

[Jase 43,479]

Looking at pirlo do you guys think Cesc can provide something similar?

He has the ability to do so but don't expect him to do the same things like Pirlo. Fabregas is more of a pass-move-pass-move type of player compared to Pirlo.

[Madmax 9,219]

Just visited some Barcelona forum to read what they think about the transfer and I was shocked, it was almost identical to our Torres thread. The people were calling him a cancer for the club and just seemed so happy to see him gone. Amazing really, because at least statistically he was definitely one of their best players in his three seasons at the club despite mostly being played out of position and Barcelona's tiki-taka not suiting him well at all.

I know he always went out of form in the second half of the season but fucking hell, saying he was the cause of all their problems in the last three seasons is taking it a bit too far. Spoiled bunch of cunts that lot.

Amazing how nicely Chelsea fans treat the players, even someone who's so shockingly inept at his only job (even Torres gets en masse cheers and chants of 'Torres! Torres!' most times he comes on).

[Sheva. 5,373]

thats not fair to the barca fans, to be honest. they are absolutely right in saying cesc was a "cancer" to barca. barca were in cruise control. their tiki- taka with the 4-3-3 was demolishing every thing in sight. then comes along cesc. in a few matches itself it was pretty evident that cesc was a mis-fit for their style of play in mid. they tried him instead of xavi, it failed. they shifted iniesta on the wing and put cesc in the mid, it failed. pep changed a whole system simply to accomodate cesc. from a stable and established 4-3-3 they went to 3 at the beack (even against us in the 2nd leg, they were 3 at the back).

next season, to accomodate cesc alcantar does not get the required time to play, which in short leads to him being sold while keeping cesc. the player who was supposed to be their heart and sould for the next foreseeable fufte, instead turned out to be their biggest downfall. he was a direct replacement for xavi but the most ideal and perfect player for that was sold (alcantara). cesc has individually set barca 2 or 3 years back. from winning 2 CLs, 2La ligas, and 2 copa del rays in the 3 years before cesc's arrival, they have won just a la liga (courtesy of JOSE and RM's bickering) and a copa del ray.

hence, i say that its very unfair to say that barca fans are being unfair or unreasonable or acting like a spoilt bunch.

It's too easy to pin it on 1 player. Barcelona have no defence, Xavi is on massive decline, and even Messi has been injured the past 2 seasons.

Fabregas actually contributes to their attack, even if they claim it's only against the weak teams (all la liga teams except like 4 are weak anyway) you still have to beat those.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Hardly surprising. Many Barcelona fans have never warmed up to him. They think that his "Barcelona DNA" got "corrupted" by PL. He plays too directly, isn't that good at Barcelona's tiki taka. Barcelona fans are blind to Xavi and Iniesta's02abysmal stats. Xavi in particular had countless poor games last season, but Cesc Is the one they blame for the club's results.02

02

Iniesta had 3 goals ans 7 assists in 27 games in 2013-2014 season.

Xavi had a total of 3 goals and 2 assists in 26 games.

Fabregas had 8 goals and 13 assists in 28 games (and that's considering the fact that he was played out of position)

02

I'm not surprised that Fabregas had a relatively poor second half of the season. I would too, if I realized that no matter how well I played, I would be benched in favour of Xavi and Iniesta. In the first half of the season he was arguably their best player. I think he finally realized that nothing is going to change for him at Barcelona.02

Fabregas played so well in the first half when messi was injured. Barcelona were topping the table with martino's more direct style. They hadn't lost a match till december, fabregas had 9 assists and was topping all leagues in assists made, everything was perfect then messi returned from injury.

Even sanchez/pedro/neymar dropped form after messi came back. Why the barca fans picked on fabregas for their fall because he's not their new xavi style player, I don't know.

[Jype 6,398]

thats not fair to the barca fans, to be honest. they are absolutely right in saying cesc was a "cancer" to barca. barca were in cruise control. their tiki- taka with the 4-3-3 was demolishing every thing in sight. then comes along cesc. in a few matches itself it was pretty evident that cesc was a mis-fit for their style of play in mid. they tried him instead of xavi, it failed. they shifted iniesta on the wing and put cesc in the mid, it failed. pep changed a whole system simply to accomodate cesc. from a stable and established 4-3-3 they went to 3 at the beack (even against us in the 2nd leg, they were 3 at the back).

next season, to accomodate cesc alcantar does not get the required time to play, which in short leads to him being sold while keeping cesc. the player who was supposed to be their heart and sould for the next foreseeable fufte, instead turned out to be their biggest downfall. he was a direct replacement for xavi but the most ideal and perfect player for that was sold (alcantara). cesc has individually set barca 2 or 3 years back. from winning 2 CLs, 2La ligas, and 2 copa del rays in the 3 years before cesc's arrival, they have won just a la liga (courtesy of JOSE and RM's bickering) and a copa del ray.

Every era comes to an end at some point and at least to me it was always obvious that Barcelona simply can't keep being the best team in the world forever, this has been more than expected IMO. It's just the timing of Cesc's arrival that happened to be around Barcelona's downfall that made some people think he had something to do with it. Just look at the Spanish national team, it's also nowhere near as good as it was a few years ago and Fabregas has been a part of that team for almost a decade. Tiki-taka has been found out badly and the managers have had to think of some alternative tactics that have so far failed but I wouldn't say it's Fabregas' fault for not fitting in. Barcelona should have known what they were getting when they bought him three years ago, it's nothing like Torres because Cesc is still very much in his prime and hasn't declined at all but his direct style of play just has no place at Barcelona and the board should have thought about that before getting him.

Also, blaming him for Thiago's departure is unfair. Barca had the opportunity to sell Fabregas for £40m last year instead of letting Thiago go but they decided it's better to keep Cesc and let Thiago leave. If at the time they really thought Cesc is a cancer for the club that has set them back years, they would have been more than happy to take the money and run while keeping Thiago but the club decided against it. If anyone should be blamed for the club's failures in the past few years, it's the clueless and clearly corrupt Barcelona board. For years they've been ignoring their obvious problems in the CB department while signing players like Ibra, Sanchez, Neymar etc. for crazy money when it was obvious that they weren't really lacking in the attacking areas but I guess signing sexy big name attacking players makes for much better PR for the club presidents who only cares about being re-elected so they can continue to embezzle money from the club.

hence, i say that its very unfair to say that barca fans are being unfair or unreasonable or acting like a spoilt bunch.

If they honestly expect to keep winning the treble every year and blame it all on one single player if they fail to do so, it's a prime example of being spoilt.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Hardly surprising. Many Barcelona fans have never warmed up to him. They think that his "Barcelona DNA" got "corrupted" by PL. He plays too directly, isn't that good at Barcelona's tiki taka. Barcelona fans are blind to Xavi and Iniesta's abysmal stats. Xavi in particular had countless poor games last season, but Cesc Is the one they blame for the club's results.

Iniesta had 3 goals ans 7 assists in 27 games in 2013-2014 season.

Xavi had a total of 3 goals and 2 assists in 26 games.

Fabregas had 8 goals and 13 assists in 28 games (and that's considering the fact that he was played out of position)

I'm not surprised that Fabregas had a relatively poor second half of the season. I would too, if I realized that no matter how well I played, I would be benched in favour of Xavi and Iniesta. In the first half of the season he was arguably their best player. I think he finally realized that nothing is going to change for him at Barcelona.

Stats dont tell the story IMO. Iniesta is still the best midfielder there is, always top in big games, always at his best and brilliant technique. Xavi got old and lost pace and isnt as good he was in the past and I dont see why didnt Barca play Thiago (last year) and Cesc more.

I think they expected too much from Cesc, that he will somehow be better than Xavi in prime or Messi. Similar to our (too big) expectations about strikers every time.

Barca tiki taka is over. They have Neymar, Sanchez, Rafinha, Deulofeu, Rakitic...who arent born to play such football, but faster attacking one. And no one will succeed if Barca keeps playing tiki taka. Thing is Iniesta and Xavi were super good and fans wont be happy with next midifelders until they become at least as good as Xavi or Iniesta. Kind of like Drogba and other strikers here...

I think Cesc (if he has the drive and clear motivated mind), he will be good here and Barca will regret that a bit.

I still dont get how would Rakitic improve their midifield anyway. If they want someone who could turn better than Cesc, they should target Koke, Kroos,...not Rakitic. He is good and had fantastic season but we are talking about Sevilla here. Put Fabregas in sevilla and he would be their best player by far.

All in all, barca ever since the golden generation couldnt replace players, they bought Ibra, neymar, cesc, alexis, song,...and no one realy fits their philosophy. Its normal when fantastic generation needs to be replaced, you will not find such players in next 10 years at least. And barca should move on from tiki taka.

I dont like about Cesc that he has very little impact on game, he cant realy lead the team, but then again he played for spain and barca with plenty class midfielders, and older generation have privileges.

[didierforever 7,349]

It's too easy to pin it on 1 player. Barcelona have no defence, Xavi is on massive decline, and even Messi has been injured the past 2 seasons.

Fabregas actually contributes to their attack, even if they claim it's only against the weak teams (all la liga teams except like 4 are weak anyway) you still have to beat those.

barca had the same defence of puyol-pique, mach-pique. xavi is on a massive decline - agreead but that was already taken into account when they bought cesc and pinned all their hopes on him.

cesc was not bought for that role. even this season they tried playing cesc in the mid but it ended up weakening them defensively rather than strengthening them in the attack.

in no way am i ridiculing cesc but simply stating the fact that cesc and barca were not a good fit for each other. cesc was "pivotal" to their downfall just like torres has been to ours. losing imporatant players (alcantara, sturridge), change of style to suit them etc etc... it has been a very similar course of events.

also lets not exaggerate messi's injuries. messi played 3740 minutes for barca this season and 4078 minutes in the last season. cesc barely played 8 more minutes than him this season (3748 minutes) and 3240 minutes in the last one. so messi still played a MASSIVE and a MAJOR part despite injuries and all.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

Stats dont tell the story IMO. Iniesta is still the best midfielder there is, always top in big games, always at his best and brilliant technique. Xavi got old and lost pace and isnt as good he was in the past and I dont see why didnt Barca play Thiago (last year) and Cesc more.

I think they expected too much from Cesc, that he will somehow be better than Xavi in prime or Messi. Similar to our (too big) expectations about strikers every time.

Barca tiki taka is over. They have Neymar, Sanchez, Rafinha, Deulofeu, Rakitic...who arent born to play such football, but faster attacking one. And no one will succeed if Barca keeps playing tiki taka. Thing is Iniesta and Xavi were super good and fans wont be happy with next midifelders until they become at least as good as Xavi or Iniesta. Kind of like Drogba and other strikers here...

I think Cesc (if he has the drive and clear motivated mind), he will be good here and Barca will regret that a bit.

I still dont get how would Rakitic improve their midifield anyway. If they want someone who could turn better than Cesc, they should target Koke, Kroos,...not Rakitic. He is good and had fantastic season but we are talking about Sevilla here. Put Fabregas in sevilla and he would be their best player by far.

All in all, barca ever since the golden generation couldnt replace players, they bought Ibra, neymar, cesc, alexis, song,...and no one realy fits their philosophy. Its normal when fantastic generation needs to be replaced, you will not find such players in next 10 years at least. And barca should move on from tiki taka.

I dont like about Cesc that he has very little impact on game, he cant realy lead the team, but then again he played for spain and barca with plenty class midfielders, and older generation have privileges.

I agree that stats don't tell the whole story and I do consider Iniesta their best midfielder, but in this case, Barcelona fans blatantly--and very conveniently--disregard Fabregas's contribution to the team. If Fabregas didn't play as well as he did in the first half of the season while Messi was injured and Xavi really sucked, who knows how much worse everything would have been? In this case, the stats tell the objective truth: despite being used out of position and often as a substitute, Fabregas directly contributed to the team's goals more than Xavi and Iniesta put together. Blaming only him for the decline of the club is weird.

It's hardly his fault that he isn't Xavi #2. He's a different player. Not necessarily worse--just different, with different skill set.

[Fernando 6,585]

Mourinho: "@cesc4official is a great player that gives a new dimension to our team is unlike Matic, Ramires and Oscar" #CFC (Marca)

Mourinho: "When buying @cesc4official I was looking for a certain profile of central midfielder and with him I will have it" #CFC (Marca)

Pivot!

Good stuff, that means he was bought for a cm role and not to replace Oscar.

However I still don't see Oscar and fabregas at the same time when playing big teams. Ramires will have to be in there for a 3 man midfielder.

Against West ham and those lots, go all out attack!