Goalpost’s September player of the month (Cesc Fabregas)

Before Arsenal’s home match with Sevilla, Wenger, in the Guardian compared Fabregas to the French Legend Michel Platini: “His vision is comparable to Platini’s, but he is at the start of his career. He will still develop. Platini had a strikers mentality. He could stay quiet for a game and think he would score a goal. Cesc is a guy who likes to distribute and be at the heart of things.” For those that do not know who only know Platini as president of Uefa, click on this Youtube/football vid link.

When he first emerged on the scene in an Arsenal shirt he was to break records for being the youngest player to play in an Arsenal shirt at 16 years and 177 days in a league cup tie to Rotheram United. Soon after he was to become the youngest ever goal scorer for Arsenal in the same competition against Wolves. Certain sections in Arsenal circles started to sit up and take notice of this child prodigy. Following injuries to key first team midfielders Fabregas proved a worthy understudy especially in the 2004-2005 season. In a Community cup match against Manchester United, he was to show what would become a distinguishable trait amongst his style of play, which is a great sense of maturity surpassing his tender young age. After earning a reputation with his fans, he soon was the subject of a football chant: “He’s only Seventeen, he’s better than Roy Keane”

Before Sunderland’s clash with Arsenal at the Emirates the former Manchester United skipper and now Sunderland manager commented on comparisons made between him and the Catalan starlet :

“He has got a chance,” Keane said with a smile. “He is probably a different type of player to me – not as cultured as me – but he’s a good player and hopefully our lads will enjoy testing themselves against very good players.

“He is still young and he is still maturing. He made one or two mistakes last year, but he seems to have settled down a bit this season and he is adding goals to his locker. Any top midfielder has to have a goal in him, and I think he has scored more now than he did last season. But that all comes with maturity, and the whole team is maturing together.” (quoted in Sporting Life.com)

Past performances aside however, it is his displays for Arsenal this season that has shown that he has made incredible improvements to his game of which was already in itself extraoadinary. A main factor of this is his goal tally both domestically and on the continent. Kevin McCarra of the Guardian commented that goals for Fabregas are now as routine as they were once exotic. Having chalked up six goals and a deflected shot against Sevilla in the Champions league, he has proved that he is head and shoulders above every else in the premiership who occupies in his position. In the post-Henry era of the red half of North London, a number of players for Arsenal were expected to step up their game. Most notably Robin Van Persie, Emmanuel Adebayor and other members of the squad have done so, but Fabregas has done this with considerable aplomb in September. Speaking in the Independent Henry said of his former team mate:

” When you look at Cesc and the way he plays it is like he is 30 with the way he sees the game, the way he sees the game the way he does everything. His mentality is already there. What i love about Cesc is that he does not like to lose.” (quoted in the Independent)

His performances are what makes Arsenal perform well, most of Arsenal’s attacks and greatplays go through him; he is virtaully unplayable; especially in the same way Henry was. One of the reasons why i like Cesc is that when he receives the ball he has that ability to turn without pressure from an opposition player and then to look for the perfect pass which more often than not he finds it. This season he has matured even more further. This is emphasised in Arsenal’s clash with Sparta Prague. Repka had made it clear his intent to mix it up rough against Arsenal, knowing this type of play is one Arsenal’s pet hates. Knowing this and after Repka upended one of his team mates, Fabregas showed that he and his team would not be intimidated and brought him down with a thunderous challenge.

Thierry Henry’s exit from Arsenal has had a profound effect on the Catalan playmaker, but not in the negative way which was expected. In relation to Henry’s exit and his performances that has propelled his team to the top of the league Fabregas commented:

“Henry intimidated us. He is a great player but it was not easy to play alongside him. We were a bit inhibited by him and dependent on everything that he wanted to do and by his demands. Now it is different. Everyone was saying that this year without Henry we would be nowhere and that has motivated everyone.”

He has shown this season that he is not afraid to get gritty and mix it in rough, but he also has not allowed to sacrifice his attacking and attractive football tendencies. His improved goalscoring tally is attributed to his willingness to shoot from outside the box , which is also something that the rest of the Arsenal players are attempting (even Toure), which is probably in response to the criticism last year that “Arsenal like to walk the ball into the net”.

Brian Glanville said of Cesc Fabregas after Arsenal’s 5-0 demolition of Derby that:

“… the transient star of the show yet again was the remarkable Cesc Fabregas. To speed of feet and thought, to a flair for the decisive pass, to a fiercely effective right-foot shot, he adds a precocious maturity.”

He went on to say that:

“When Wenger let his talisman Patrick Vieira go, even he could hardly have expected, however much he hoped, that the so much smaller Fabregas would so dominate in midfield.” (in the Times, September 23rd 2007)

He has been an integral part of the Arsenal squad that has seen them placed top of the league which is why he is Goalpost Online’s player of the month.

The other contenders:

2. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United)

3. Elano (Manchester City)

4. Ashley Young (Aston Villa)

5. Fernando Torres (Liverpool)

6.Micah Richards (Manchester City)

7. Nemanja Vidić (Manchester United)

8.  Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal)

9. Benjani Mwaruwari(Portsmouth)

10. Robin Van Persie (Arsenal)