Has Cesc Fabregas fullfilled his potential ?

Luke1995

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As you know, Fabregas was one of Arsenal's better players for years, during that time I think that he played the best football of his career although one can argue he was better at Chelsea.

Then he moved to Barcelona and although he wasn't the main man and didn't win the champions league, he maintained a good level, probably not the dream he had in mind when he joined.

Then went to Chelsea and finally won the Premier League, as one of the key players. Add that to winning La Liga, the Euros and the World Cup, and he's had a fantastic career

But, when you first saw him and followed him over the years did he became what you expected him to become ? At one point, in 2008 or 2009 I thought he could be as good as Ronaldo and Messi

So, what do you make of his career given your thoughts at first ?
 

11101

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Literally the only thing he hasn't won is the Champions League. Multiple leagues, domestic cups, Club World Cups, Euros, World Cup. I would say he has matched his potential or perhaps overachieved.

His situation is common to that era of La Masia graduate. Not quite good enough to make it in the actual Barcelona team, but his style of play and technical level was high enough to convince people in other leagues he actually was as good as them. He wasn't.
 

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Fabregas has had a weird career as at his best he was a different type of player than people expected him to be. He turned into an extremely creative and productive player rather than following the stereotype of being a "controller".

Almost the opposite of Modric who was number 10 for a long time and then settled into a great 8.

Prime Fabregas would be the perfect for Guardiola's current City team though.
 

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Wenger gets a lot of grief but there are a lot of players out there who were far better under him than they ever managed to be anywhere else. Fabregas is one of them.
 

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Luke1995 said:
At one point, in 2008 or 2009 I thought he could be as good as Ronaldo and Messi

So, what do you make of his career given your thoughts at first ?
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Spent far too long at Arsenal. Nearly a decade there with 1 FA Cup to show for it.

A great player but far too slow to get close to Messi or Ronaldo.
 

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Brightonian said:
Wenger gets a lot of grief but there are a lot of players out there who were far better under him than they ever managed to be anywhere else. Fabregas is one of them.
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Fabregas was brilliant for Mourinho's Chelsea V2. Well for the first half of the season he was. I think he just wasted too much of his time at Barcelona and by the time he left, he was now on the other side of his prime.

It's worth remembering he started at 16. Like Rooney he accumulated a lot of mileage early on.
 

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Carolina Red said:
798 matches, 137 goals for club and country.

Has won...

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Individual

Orders

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I know you've done a copy and paste but losing in a final is not something he "has won".

Also, he got a winners medal for winning the Europa League with Chelsea a couple of years ago (he played in the earlier rounds so got a medal!).
 

Luke1995

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Generally it seems that Fabregas isn't held in the same level of respect/joy by fans like Xavi and Iniesta are, but at his best he was possibly better.

Xavi and Iniesta are basically considered legends of spanish footballl and of the game overall, while Fabregas seems a tier below...
 

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duffer said:
I know you've done a copy and paste but losing in a final is not something he "has won".

Also, he got a winners medal for winning the Europa League with Chelsea a couple of years ago (he played in the earlier rounds so got a medal!).
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Yeah yeah yeah, I didn’t feel like deleting the runner ups.
 

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Looking back, I wonder how Arsenal fans felt when Puyol was doing everything but give him a reacharound to make him come to Barceloan, that was one public "join us" flirt between several ofthe Barca players and Fabergas.
 

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duffer said:
Spent far too long at Arsenal. Nearly a decade there with 1 FA Cup to show for it.

A great player but far too slow to get close to Messi or Ronaldo.
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What speed has to do with it though ? Plenty of slow players like Pirlo Lampard and Zidane are generally seem as legends
 

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Luke1995 said:
Generally it seems that Fabregas isn't held in the same level of respect/joy by fans like Xavi and Iniesta are, but at his best he was possibly better.

Xavi and Iniesta are basically considered legends of spanish footballl and of the game overall, while Fabregas seems a tier below...
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He is a tier below. He was not as good as Xavi and Iniesta - and that's not meant to have a go at him.
 

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When he was very young, in an under 17championship
I remember that he contributed much more to the attack.
Shortly after when he debuted with Wenger he did much deeper than expected, keeping and improving in that position.
I would have liked to see him playing a few meters ahead throughout his career. Barcelona didn't need him and I think Barcelona fans always had a grudge with him.
With Spain he had too much competition although had very important moments
 
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Luke1995 said:
Generally it seems that Fabregas isn't held in the same level of respect/joy by fans like Xavi and Iniesta are, but at his best he was possibly better.

Xavi and Iniesta are basically considered legends of spanish footballl and of the game overall, while Fabregas seems a tier below...
Click to expand...
I'd have to strongly disagree, I don't think he was ever at their level, or capable of being at that level. He was an outstanding footballer though, for a few years at Arsenal he was world class. Going to Barcelona was a mistake, not because I don't think he was good enough but because the area that he did his best work in was generally the same domain Messi did a lot of his work in. He didn't quite take to the wider role that Iniesta could, nor did he have the tactical discipline to excel deeper the same way Xavi could. He was perfectly serviceable as a false 9, or a false LW, or a false midfielder, or whatever position that will be prefixed with false at Barcelona, but it was always as a noticeable step down from Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. Which is hardly a travesty, they're amongst the best in their position.

I think playing in the premier league, made it harder for him to play under Pep's Barcelona.

As for potential fulfilled, I'd say so. He took a similar trajectory to Rooney where he hit an incredible level and had a lot of high level seasons unde rhis belt. Because he arrived at that level far earlier than a lot of his peers, a lot of people will point to his performances at around 30 and claim they didn't hit their full potential, but that's ignoring a rough decade of brilliant displays. Just not the stereotypical linear trajectory.
 

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A bit like Rooney in the sense that he was so spectacular as a teenager and peaked much earlier than the average footballer due to the early start.

The Barcelona move was a bad one as many top players seem to make and stalled his career a bit but still had two top seasons for Chelsea, in Mourinho and Conte's first seasons.

Where he belongs in his era is up for debate but what isn't is that he's arguably the best passer of his generation. I see his name gets left out a lot but he was one of the few who could conduct a game with short passes but also make the killer ball and rack up assists.
 

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Cascarino said:
I'd have to strongly disagree, I don't think he was ever at their level, or capable of being at that level. He was an outstanding footballer though, for a few years at Arsenal he was world class. Going to Barcelona was a mistake, not because I don't think he was good enough but because the area that he did his best work in was generally the same domain Messi did a lot of his work in. He didn't quite take to the wider role that Iniesta could, nor did he have the tactical discipline to excel deeper the same way Xavi could. He was perfectly serviceable as a false 9, or a false LW, or a false midfielder, or whatever position that will be prefixed with false at Barcelona, but it was always as a noticeable step down from Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. Which is hardly a travesty, they're amongst the best in their position.

I think playing in the premier league, made it harder for him to play under Pep's Barcelona.

As for potential fulfilled, I'd say so. He took a similar trajectory to Rooney where he hit an incredible level and had a lot of high level seasons unde rhis belt. Because he arrived at that level far earlier than a lot of his peers, a lot of people will point to his performances at around 30 and claim they didn't hit their full potential, but that's ignoring a rough decade of brilliant displays. Just not the stereotypical linear trajectory.
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Well summarised. And as an early bloomer like Rooney we can forget how good he was earlier in his career. And it probably won’t be until some time after he retires once the dust has settled on his career that his better days will be more easily appreciated, without the caveat that he’s no longer the player he once was.
 

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I remember a Twitter thread or article I read a few years ago, dissecting and ultimately trashing Fabregas' performances for Barcelona in his first 2 seasons there. If someone knows what I'm talking about, and can link me to it I'll be eternally obliged.
 

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How is his Spain career viewed? Obviously part of the golden era but he's never remembered as fondly as the key players in that even though he set up the winner for Iniesta in the final in 2010 and also scored a penalty in the shoot out win over Italy in 2008.
 

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Luke1995 said:
Generally it seems that Fabregas isn't held in the same level of respect/joy by fans like Xavi and Iniesta are, but at his best he was possibly better.

Xavi and Iniesta are basically considered legends of spanish footballl and of the game overall, while Fabregas seems a tier below...
Click to expand...
I doubt anyone would argue he was better than either of these two at all. They are all time top players. He wasn't.

And i doubt anyone would say he was better at Chelsea than at Arsenal.
 

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Sandikan said:
I doubt anyone would argue he was better than either of these two at all. They are all time top players. He wasn't.

And i doubt anyone would say he was better at Chelsea than at Arsenal.
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He was really good for Chelsea in 14/15. Him and Costa coming in had them strolling to the league title that season. After that he dipped. Poster before made the point he seemed to burn out a bit like Rooney given he was playing week in week out in premier league at 17.
 

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His potential was never that great to begin with. For a 10 he's not technically great enough, for a 8 or 6 he was a defensive liability. He was always in the prem because of the strange way midfield operate in the league.
 

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duffer said:
Sure. An incredible career. Won more or less the lot, hugely respected in the game, a multi-millionaire and played for Barca, Arsenal, Chelsea and Monaco.

There's only a handful of players who had better careers.
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Perfectly put. I feel this generation of Messi, Cristiano, Xavi, Iniesta ect, have blurred the line to what it means to be a great player. Personally feel prime Cesc, end of his Arsenal days, would walk into most club sides today. Was such a joy to watch.
 

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Arsenal fans used to tell me he was better than Xavi and Iniesta.

The talent he was at 16, I thought he would be a future Ballon D'or winner
 

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I was actually going to mention his transfer from Arsenal to Barca in the "worst career moves" thread, until it occurred to me that he probably won a lot of trophies there. Though looking at the post above, the only major trophy he won there was La Liga. Which is great to win, obviously, but perhaps less than he would have expected to take away from his time there given how great Barca were in some of the surrounding years.

It's probably very unfair to look at the move that way but his time at Arsenal suggested a promise that was never quite fulfilled at Barca. By the time he arrived at Chelsea he seemed slightly past his best, so much so that I'm surprised to see he's only 32. Though even at that point in his career he still looked excellent at times and bagged himself two league titles to pretty up the CV.

He was never likely to be better than either Xavi or Iniesta but those are two of the all time great midfielders so the comparison is a bit unfair. I think he could have got more from his prime years based on how good he was though.
 

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Lay said:
Arsenal fans used to tell me he was better than Xavi and Iniesta.

The talent he was at 16, I thought he would be a future Ballon D'or winner
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Let me stop you at "Arsenal fans".
Why would they hype their own player up I wonder?

Any notion he was better than them ended immediately when he joined them, and you could see them on the same pitch as a direct comparison.
 

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Barca coveted him for so long despite not really having a position for him to play in, ended up being a stagnating move for him, despite the success.
 

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Sandikan said:
Let me stop you at "Arsenal fans".
Why would they hype their own player up I wonder?

Any notion he was better than them ended immediately when he joined them, and you could see them on the same pitch as a direct comparison.
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I meant that in a humorous way. I was going to continue that they told me Bellerin is better than Cafu, Nasri will be as good as Zidane etc
 

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Going to Barcelona was the wrong move. I bet if he moved to City they would have won more titles and he'd have won more individually.
 

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The Cat said:
He is a tier below. He was not as good as Xavi and Iniesta - and that's not meant to have a go at him.
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To me, Xavi and Iniesta made big improvements after Ronaldinho left. They were always in his shadow or Messi's shadow. Not sure if people considered them world class before dinho left.

Maybe the sucess they had with spain changed the world's initial perception on them. Fabregas had a fantastic footballing brain, maybe not the work ethic Xavi and Iniesta had.
 

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Cascarino said:
I'd have to strongly disagree, I don't think he was ever at their level, or capable of being at that level. He was an outstanding footballer though, for a few years at Arsenal he was world class. Going to Barcelona was a mistake, not because I don't think he was good enough but because the area that he did his best work in was generally the same domain Messi did a lot of his work in. He didn't quite take to the wider role that Iniesta could, nor did he have the tactical discipline to excel deeper the same way Xavi could. He was perfectly serviceable as a false 9, or a false LW, or a false midfielder, or whatever position that will be prefixed with false at Barcelona, but it was always as a noticeable step down from Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. Which is hardly a travesty, they're amongst the best in their position.

I think playing in the premier league, made it harder for him to play under Pep's Barcelona.

As for potential fulfilled, I'd say so. He took a similar trajectory to Rooney where he hit an incredible level and had a lot of high level seasons unde rhis belt. Because he arrived at that level far earlier than a lot of his peers, a lot of people will point to his performances at around 30 and claim they didn't hit their full potential, but that's ignoring a rough decade of brilliant displays. Just not the stereotypical linear trajectory.
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It's curious that maybe playing in the premier league made it harder for him to fit under Pep. David Silva changed from La Liga to PL and didn't need to adapt. Aguero aswell.

And sure, Iniesta and Xavi could play in more positions...I still think Fabregas had a bigger impact on the game as a teenager at least. Xavi started in 1998 and didn't hit his best until 2008 or 2009.
 

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He had a fantastic career but you feel it could have been even greater. He was unlucky to be part of the last great Arsenal team as it was dismantled. He was the focal point of the team from 2006-2011.

However, we were always a few players short of winning trophies. Surrounding him with average/ dross level players didn't help. If I remember correctly, he suffered a bad knee injury towards the end of his time with us. This seemed to slow him down considerably.
 

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Luke1995 said:
It's curious that maybe playing in the premier league made it harder for him to fit under Pep. David Silva changed from La Liga to PL and didn't need to adapt. Aguero aswell.

And sure, Iniesta and Xavi could play in more positions...I still think Fabregas had a bigger impact on the game as a teenager at least. Xavi started in 1998 and didn't hit his best until 2008 or 2009.
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With Fabregas, a lot of it was the tactical rigidity that he encountered at Barcelona. At Arsenal it didn't take him long to become the undisputed main man, large swathes of the attack were orchestrated through him, and he'd be given a lot of freedom when it came to positional discipline. Towards the end of his Arsenal career he had a season where he added a real cut throat productivity to his game and I would say this was peak Cesc, a creative influence that drove his team forward and could bag you goals. He was a competitive player with determination too, which I wouldn't say for many of his at the time Arsenal colleagues. At Barcelona though, he was essentially shackled. He had to fit in to the wider tactical plan, both in his positional duties and his use of the ball. He often played further forward or wider than I'm sure he would have liked and despite keeping up the productivity, he always looked like an awkward fit. I remember that it didn't take long for a lot of the Barcelona fans to basically turn on him. At Arsenal he was the creative hub, at Barcelona he was just a cog with several other exceptional creative influences. Coupled with the fact that despite all the comparisons around that time in terms of playstyle, Arsenal were a much more direct team than Barcelona. When keeping the ball is such a prerogative, and you're surrounded by players who are the masters at ball retention while still remaining creative influences, it can be hard to live up to the standard. I imagine Fabregas was purchased with the intention of replacing Xavi one day, but they were such different players that it never really could have worked out that way.

Iniesta had more positional versatility sure, but it's less to do with that and more that when Fabregas arrived, the current Barcelona midfield trio were playing to a level that has rarely ever been reached in football. I wouldn't disagree that Fabregas had a bigger impact as a teenager (though Iniesta was hugely regarded as a teen and Xavi's performances from the start of the century onwards are very underrated), but I don't think it really means anything. There's loads of variables in terms of who your squad competition is, squad performance, manager etc. Francis Jeffers had a bigger impact than Kane as a teenager, but it doesn't really mean anything. I'm not taking anything away from Fabregas, he was a prodigious talent and I used to love watching him, he was also a fairly distinct talent in his early days in the prem and had an exceptional career. It's just that Xavi and Iniesta are pretty much perfect footballers.
 
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