Don't blame him for going but I genuinely think he'd be a better player in England than in Spain. He has shown for spells in the season his quality - he has a lot of goals, power and two-footed tackling in him. He often pushes things to the limit with refs and gets away with it because he's Cesc Fabregas. Over there, he's just another good player. In the past couple of seasons, his main strength - technical ability and precision passes - have not been a feature of his play and I think he'll get a wake up call when he sees those Barca youngsters out-performing him in training.

I don't think we've been able to get the best out of Fabregas. He was not captain material at 22 and still isn't now, but that doesn't mean he can't fight or doesn't have the mentality to be a great player. What he needed was leadership from: 1) a strong manager that would be willing to make changes when things aren't working, 2) An experienced leader who had been at the club longer than Cesc had and was willing to scare the silly mistakes out of the youngsters.

But overall, we knew he was going at some point...not that bothered that he's going now. Even if it's wrong in the short term, we have a chance to correct just one of the many mistakes. We have let the Arsenal armband become meaningless. I would happily give the captaincy to Wilshere as he is genuinely the most deserving and he is definitely the one who'd give the most to earn it.