Cesc Fabregas didn’t receive a warm welcome from all Arsenal fans on Sunday, despite him being a club hero and a former skipper. It means little; he is a Chelsea player now. The (bitter) truth is, his first preference was always Arsenal, but Arsene Wenger passed on that opportunity to re-sign him.
Wenger admitted ahead of the Chelsea match that he had the chance to sign Fabregas, but he chose to do against it because he already have an avalanche of attacking players at disposal. Having already signed Mesut Ozil the previous season from Real Madrid for a club record fee, investing on Fabregas would have been all but luxury.
Spanish newspaper El Confidencial claims that Bayern Munich boss Pep Guardiola wanted to sign Mesut Ozil this summer, but Wenger had refused to sell the German international. Guardiola wanted to sign Ozil before, during his time at Barcelona, but the German midfielder joined Real Madrid instead.
El Con says Wenger had this golden opportunity to sell Ozil, who performed below par in his first season, and resign Fabregas, but he wasted his chances and made a big mistake in the process. In retrospection such claims make sense, as Fabregas is firing all cylinders (seven assists already) in the league, while Ozil is struggling to make any sort of impact for the Gunners.
Jose Mourinho convinced Fabregas to join Chelsea during a dinner meeting held in London. The Spanish newspaper says that Wenger’s pride and ego the only reason behind why he didn’t resign Fabregas and allowed their direct rivals to snap him up at a bargain price.
These are all pure conjectures. For a big club like Arsenal, a lot of thought process goes on before signing any player, and hard to believe mere pride and ego of a manager have prevented a club from signing a world class player.