Arsenal expect Cesc Fábregas and Samir Nasri back – but not for long
• Fábregas likely to rejoin Barcelona soon for £35m
• Nasri unlikely to sign Arsenal's £90,000-per-week deal
Share
reddit this
Dominic Fifield
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 July 2011 15.24 BST
Article history
Cesc Fábregas is privately expecting to leave Arsenal for his former club Barcelona soon. Photograph: Achmad Ibrahim/AP
Arsenal expect Cesc Fábregas and Samir Nasri to return for pre-season training at London Colney this week despite the likelihood that neither will be at the club by the time the Premier League season starts next month.
Fábregas, who has been on holiday in Spain, will return with the bulk of the senior squad on Tuesday, with Barcelona still attempting to complete what they hope will be a £35m transfer back to the club. A bid of around £27m was rejected earlier in the summer but having received an improved offer last week, there is an acceptance at Arsenal that the long-running saga of their captain's future is nearing a conclusion.
The player himself was quoted last week as being "calm and optimistic" about his future. While the 24-year-old privately anticipates that he will be granted his wish to join the Catalan club where he started his career, he is not expected to risk his reputation at Arsenal by refusing to report back for training and will instead hope resolution is reached in negotiations before the Gunners depart for a mini-tour of Malaysia and China a week today.
Nasri's situation is arguably more complicated, with Arsenal yet to receive a concrete offer for the France international who has entered the final 12 months of his contract and has indicated he will not sign a new five-year deal worth around £90,000 a week.
The 24-year-old is aware that Manchester United are expected to formalise their interest in him, while both Manchester City and Chelsea are monitoring the situation in the event that their pursuits of priority targets do not come to fruition.
Nasri, a £15.8m signing from Marseille in 2008, is not due to return to London Colney until Thursday having been granted a few extra days' holiday, as have those other Arsenal players who were involved in international duty at the start of the summer. The midfielder, who has not won anything since moving to the club, was quoted over the weekend claiming his motivation is far from financial and, instead, centres upon a desire to win things.
"I don't want to sign for a club where I wouldn't be playing the football that I like, where I wouldn't feel happy, just for the money," he said. "We already earn huge wages. The priority is to make a big career and to win titles. This is more important than everything else."
That has merely served to fuel suggestions that Nasri is keen to move to pastures new. His compatriot Gaël Clichy, another to have entered the final year of his contract at Arsenal, should complete a £7m move to Manchester City early this week.
Yet Arsène Wenger will hope to counter the apparent exodus of senior players from his first-team squad by completing the protracted £11m transfer of Lille's Ivory Coast forward Gervinho in the next 48 hours. Gervinho had been the subject of interest from several Premier League clubs after scoring 15 goals for the French champions last season, but has opted for a move to the Emirates.
"I chose Arsenal because it's a young group within which I will be able to integrate easily," Gervinho told France Football magazine. "I could develop more over there.
"[Is it] a risk? Not at all. I'm going to Arsenal to play. The best risk to take is to look to score goals and to play a lot. In football you have to take risks if you want to win. I'm going to Arsenal to win. I'm going there to play, not to be on the bench. Arsenal love the game and I love teams that love the game. The Premier League is a notch above."
The attacker may yet be followed to Arsenal by the highly rated Velez Sarsfield midfielder Ricky Alvarez, despite Internazionale having emerged as rivals for the 23-year-old Argentine's signature.
Originally Posted by AKBapologist
Posting Permissions
