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Cesc is ready to leave North London. He has said clearly and often that he would like to win trophies and Arsenal have not done enough in the transfer market to stay competitive with Manchester United, Chelsea and now Manchester City. If it were merely a one-way desire, not much would come of it, but Cesc is a wanted man. Pep Guardiola counted on his services last summer to go along with the David Villa signing and to strengthen his options in the midfield. It is more than just securing a long-term replacement for Xavi.
Why would he leave the Arsenal captaincy to play a supporting role at Barcelona? Who says he wouldn´t start at Barcelona? Just because he is a supersub for Vicente del Bosque in a Spain shirt, playing third-wheel to Xavi and Iniesta, does not mean that Guardiola sees him in the same role. He came up as a deep-lying playmaker, but has taken on a much more attacking role behind the strikers for Arsenal at times. With young midfielder Thiago Alcantara graduating from La Masia and being promised a central role in next year´s blaugrana why then would Pep also continue on his quest for Cesc? He doesn´t see their roles as mutually exclusive either. It doesn´t seem workable, but Barcelona are different, and no I don´t mean the whole mes que un club thing, what I mean is that they construct their teams differently from others. It´d be interesting just to see how he actually fits all those seemingly interchangeable parts together into a cohesive whole.
That said, it doesn´t seem that Arsenal are likely to drop their evaluation of their captain, somewhere north of the 50 million euro, and Barcelona aren´t likely to pay that for essentially a bench player, but if Cesc forces his move it is in Arsenal´s best interest to close the door on the Cesc Fabregas era and build around any one of the rough diamonds they have coming through their academy system.
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