WTTGT Writer: John Montanye
The following is a fairly accurate albeit liberal account of the way Barcelona has managed to tap up our captain, destroy his morale and evoke the wrath of “The Professor”.
Rossell: Hello Mr. Wenger? This is Sandro Rossell, I am calling you to let you know FC Barcelona are interested in one of your players.
Wenger: Hi Mr. Rossell, really you have an interest in one of our players, Denilson perhaps?
Rossell: No, no, not Denilson, although he is highly thought of here (chuckles). We are calling for Césc.
Wenger: Oh him, yeah I hadn’t noticed the entire Barcelona first eleven on every single newspaper across Spain calling for his transfer. But listen, after last year, we have decided that the best course of action would be to come to an agreement. We wanted £50m last year. We are willing to negotiate the price to £40m.
Rossell: Oh! You are willing to negotiate? Splendid! You know, we are still displeased about Bellerin and Toral. We believe this was very underhanded of you to recruit these players. We would like to charge you £3m for each and have that credited to the sale.
Wenger: You can’t negotiate a price for players that are under contract with us already. By the way, the 700k cheque is in the mail for those two lads. Keep up the good work at the academy, it’s working wonders for us. By the way, do you know where our cheque is for the final installments of the Henry and Hleb transfers?
Rossell: Uhm, let me check into that, as you know we are deep in debt thanks to my predecessor, and he was the one in charge at that time, but no matter, it will be resolved. Now back to Césc. We are willing to offer £20m and Thiago. You know Césc simply isn’t worth what he was last year.
Wenger: That is generous to say the least. But as I said the price is £40m pounds, and we are not interested in Thiago.
Rossell: Well that is a shock, Thiago is a world class player and we are upping his release clause to €100m.
Wenger: Yawn…
Rossell: Hmmm. Ok how about £25m?
Wenger: I have to go Mr. Rossell, Joey Barton is on the other line (smiles). When you are ready to place a real offer please don’t hesitate to call back.
Rossell: £26m?
Wenger: Click.
Over the next few weeks, the Barcelona players all praise Césc in the media; tell the media how much they want him “home.” Meanwhile, they make a bid for Alexis Sanchez of €45m. They also equal the bid of Real Madrid for Neymar, also €45m. These two players are worth €45m, yet Césc, their ‘native son’ is not. So Rossell tries again.
Rossell: Hi Mr. Wenger, it’s Sandro again.
Wenger: Oh you…yeah what is it?
Rossell: We are prepared to negotiate.
Wenger: I am sorry but Bendtner is already talking to many clubs in the Bundesliga (contains his laughter).
Rossell: No, not him, Césc!
Wenger: Oh, of course, how could I have forgotten?
Rossell: It happens to us all Arséne. May I call you Arséne?
Wenger: No.
Rossell: Oh, ok. Well in any case, we are prepared to offer £35m for Césc. But unfortunately can’t pay any more. And we can pay you £5m this year, and £10m in subsequent years.
Wenger: You know I saw all your players talking about Césc in the media; his price is now £45m.
Rossell: What? Are you serious? You can’t be serious!!
Wenger: I am. Maybe you can have more weddings at the Camp Nou or charge more to have lunch with all your trophies. Something along those lines, I am sure you can manage. Please tell us when you can pay; the boy is getting restless over here after being third choice behind Sanchez and Neymar.
Rossell: I have never been insulted like this!
At this point Guardiola takes the phone.
Guardiola: Hi Arséne. It’s Pep, listen I have made a pledge to negotiate with you, we will pay £35m.
Wenger: Don’t you people listen?
Guardiola: Ok 36…
Wenger: Click.
Basically Gunners, although a comical take on these Catalan idiots, this is what we are dealing with, a lot of media posturing whilst in the background, they are doing things in a completely different manner.
You would think the above is complete fabrication and although not directly quoted, this is how it is happening. It’s ridiculously close to the truth.
We are dealing with a club with limited funds, wanting to pay in drastically long and complicated installments so they can play CM-online and hoard good players.
Udinese (Sanchez’s club) has not fallen prey to this tactic and thankfully Wenger has not either. This will all be resolved, in a manner suited to benefit Arsenal – I hope!
Brilliant article, especially the part where sandro ask wenger can he call wenger arsene and wenger saod no, laughed at that part
Cesc to Barca – the longest, most boring, most monotonous, anticlamitc transfer in Premiership footballing history. Even my fellow gunners are bored of the whole thing. Its no wonder even The Sun now relegates the story with far less coverage.
Farcelona really are a bunch of classless *****- management and players. I just hope we don't roll over- we always seem to let our players go cheaply. What people forget is that Cesc signed a long term contract so shouldn't expect to be able to repatriate his Barca DNA that easily. Funny how Fran Merida's DNA never got brought up though isn't it!
your comments were amusing, but, arsene realy needs to end this, NOW, i dont know about you other supporters but this is totaly stressing me out, last season was the same, i do believe arsene when he says cesc is staying, as i believed him last season, but when you hear that arsenal will except 40mill for cesc, im worried that barca will pay this. then arsene says they have 2 weeks, barca then say they have the funds for cesc and have till the end of august to get him. WHY cant we just hear the truth for once, the fans have a right to know, not sit back and worry that we're gunner lose our captain. if he goes, we have to find a replacement, that will take a miricle and a hell of alot of money, as there is no one out there like our cesc.
I think Barcelona are not rushed for cesc as they know he wants them and they want him…nothing else exists…Sanchez situation is that Udinese need the money and 25 million euros that they settled for is a very good price for a very good player.
Bojan looks on his way to Roma, Jeffren is off too…pedro is due to become a super sub and Sanchez is likely to start.
Im quite sure Barcelona are trying to pawn off a few players and pay less money for cesc. The problem will be the value of said players…If they are perhaps including Mascherano in deals…hes not worth 18 mill to arsenal…or Affelay is not worth 8-10 mill to arsenal.
It will happen…Cesc will go…but only when wenger gets his way.