But that promise has not been fulfilled. Arsenal went backwards this season, not forwards. We got humiliated in all the big games, by Chelsea, Manchester United and, most unedifyingly, by Barcelona. Yet still Wenger stubbornly refused to get his chequebook out and do anything about it.
I suspect something died inside Fabregas in January, when Arsenal were still in the race for the Premier League and Champions League, and the fans were screaming for more firepower to give us the best chance possible. Wenger bought just one player, 35-year-old Sol Campbell. This despite the Arsenal board insisting he had significant funds to spend.
I met Fabregas at a charity fashion show soon after the transfer window had ended and he couldn’t hide his disappointment at the lack of big signings.
The dream has died: Cesc Fabregas looks set to depart Arsenal - and Piers can't blame him" class="blkBorder" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: black; border-right-color: black; border-bottom-color: black; border-left-color: black; ">The dream has died: Cesc Fabregas looks set to depart Arsenal - and Piers can't blame him
When Barcelona came knocking again last week, just after signing one of the world’s great strikers, David Villa, to play alongside the sublime Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the dazzling Leo Messi, it can’t have taken young Cesc very long to do the maths.
He wants to win things. And let’s be brutally honest here, he’s not going to win anything at Arsenal as long as the current defeatist mentality continues to exist at the club. I’m astonished how many Gooners seem content to just put up with what’s happening at the Emirates. ‘We’re playing great football,’ they blindly insist to me.
Which is true, apart from when we play any really good team — and then we get thrashed off the park. ‘We can’t afford to buy any top players,’ they recite, parrot fashion. A statement which is poppycock given the huge revenues pouring in from the new stadium.
‘Wenger knows what he’s doing,’ they nod, sagely. To which I’ve begun to reply: ‘DOES he?’
I’ll admit that I’m not a good loser. I’m so competitive that when Amanda Holden once asked me to sponsor her in the
Z London Marathon and said Simon Cowell had offered £1,000, I immediately stumped up £1,001.
And I hate Arsenal not winning anything. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
I wouldn’t mind if I genuinely believed we had the potential to do so but I don’t. All I’m seeing is other clubs getting stronger as we get weaker. And if, or should I say when, Fabregas leaves, it will mean that Wenger’s youth experiment has failed.
You can’t bang on about grooming rookies to conquer the world, then let the best one (and our captain) go before you’re anywhere near the summit.
I continue to believe Wenger’s a brilliant man — intelligent, charming, sophisticated and loyal. But sadly, I’ve stopped believing in his strategy for improving Arsenal’s ability to win trophies. And the impending departure of Fabregas merely serves to cement that view.
Thanks for the ride, Cesc, I’m just very, very sorry that our dismal lack of ambition forced you to quit.
Now the FA need a man like Dein
I’ve known Gary Lineker a long time (we have sons in the same school) and I like and respect the man. But I think he’s wrong about this Lord Triesman business.
The right man for the job: Dein
You can’t have a Football Association chairman accusing other countries of bribery and corruption, on the record or off it. Nor one behaving like a dumb, lovestruck teenager with a 37-year-old gold-digger.
Not when you’re trying to garner international support for your World Cup bid and when you’ve stripped John Terry of the England captaincy for matters related to alleged carnal misconduct.
The randy old goat behaved like the classic old fool of old fools and was right to step down.
But I don’t think it will make much difference to our chances of winning the bid. I imagine the most common reaction of anyone south of Dover to the scandal was ‘Lord who?’
More pertinently, I never thought Triesman was any good to start with.
What the FA need at the helm is someone like David Dein, a football man to his shinpads and a highly skilful negotiator.
Arsenal haven’t been the same since he was forced out of the club. But our loss could, and should, be the FA’s gain.
Avram Grant claims that resigning from debt-ridden, relegated Portsmouth was ‘one of the most difficult decisions of my career’. To which I say: ‘Tosh.’
Sir Alex Ferguson says his Manchester United squad’s good enough and he won’t be buying big in the transfer market this summer.
Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho’s heading to the Bernabeu, where he’ll take a good, long look at the already fantastic Real Madrid squad, then spend money like a Goldman Sachs banker at Royal Ascot.
Proven winner: Mourinho
And that’s why he’ll carry on winning trophies at United’s expense and why United should have retired Sir Alex and brought Mourinho to Old Trafford.
He understands the truth of the maxim ‘speculate to accumulate’ and wouldn’t put up with the ghastly Glazers’ penny-pinching.
Typical, isn’t it? I take a week off writing this column and England win the cricket Twenty20 World Cup. What a game, though. By the end, the Australians looked like we’d shot every kangaroo, dingo and Crocodile Dundee lookalike that exists on the planet.
Paul Collingwood’s men were magnificent, there’s no other word for it. For which he and coach Andy Flower must take huge credit. But one man was unquestionably more magnificent than others.
Kevin Pietersen’s been through a tough old year. He missed most of the Ashes campaign through an achilles injury, struggled in his comeback tour to South Africa and began to attract the kind of sniping criticism we Brits so adore when our sporting heroes take a dip in form.
Daddy of the all: Pietersen
Every time I defended him in this column, insisting he was the best batsman England have had in decades, emails would pour in mocking me and abusing Pietersen. Now my inbox has gone rather quiet.
KP averaged 83 in the series against Bangladesh, 59 in the Indian Premier League (he headed the batting figures) and 62 in the World Cup, scoring 248 runs at a strike rate of 137. And he’s been
batting with a power, freedom and creative genius that has surely confirmed him as the world’s most dangerous player.
What I love about this guy is that he never once moaned to me about the critics or his temporary loss of form. He just worked harder in the nets and let his bat do the talking.
Pietersen became a father for the first time two weeks ago. Which is appropriate because, as the battered, bruised Aussies will discover Down Under this winter, he’s The Daddy.
Have your say
Dear Clever Clogs, I kept your predictions for the 2009-10 football season (Mail on Sunday of 9.8.09). All you got right was that Robbie Keane would leave Spurs, Newcastle would be promoted and Burnley and Hull would go down. My wife could have told you that and she thinks Wayne Rooney is ‘a good kicker’.
These are the worst of your list: Manchester United will fail to finish in the top two. WRONG!
Torres will be top scorer in the Premier League. WRONG!
Wolves will be relegated. WRONG!
Portsmouth will be absolutely fine. JUST A BIT WRONG!
Roy Keane will quit Ipswich. WRONG!
And finally, Liverpool will win the Premier League. MILES OUT!!
Stick to Britain’s Got Talent, mate!
BRIAN NORMAN
Piers says: ‘Not great, I admit. But you forgot 'Bolton will bore the bojangles out of everyone”. I was right about that.’
Do you think Beckham will be awarded his umpteenth cap for travelling to Africa as England coach? It was my belief you needed ‘written’ qualifications for that job, not be a one-footed, one-paced, no-heading-ability player.
TERRY JONES
Piers says: ‘I think Beckham’s going as a multi-lingual translator.’
Could you buy Sam Allardyce a couple of new shirts, that actually fit him?
A D IMRIE
Piers says: ‘I think he bursts them. He’s not called Big Sam for nothing.’
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