Pep Guardiola: Barcelona will fight to the end to get Cesc Fábregas
• Barça's main priority is landing Chile winger Alexis Sánchez
• Arsenal question how keen Catalan club are over Fábregas
• Arsenal question how keen Catalan club are over Fábregas
- Jamie Jackson and agencies
- guardian.co.uk, Article history
The Barcelona manager, Pep Guardiola, has insisted that the club will do their best to land Cesc Fábregas. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters
Barcelona are ready to "fight to the end" to bring Cesc Fábregas back to the club, despite admitting that the Arsenal captain is not their main priority.
Barça are in talks with Arsenal to buy the Spain midfielder, a long-term target for the Spanish and European champions, the manager Pep Guardiola told a news conference on Tuesday, although their main objective is signing the Chile winger Alexis Sánchez.
"This year Arsenal has agreed to negotiate and we are working on it," Guardiola said. "Barcelona has made an offer, Arsenal another and we have time until 31 August and we'll try to reach an agreement," said the 40-year-old.
"There is a sum of money in the strong box set aside for this signing but if it doesn't work out it will be kept in the box for something else. We will fight to the end to try to get Cesc because we believe he will improve the team and the squad."
Fábregas, 24, came through Barcelona's youth academy at the same time as World Player of the Year Lionel Messi before joining Arsenal in 2003 at the age of 16. He has discussed his situation with Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger when he returned for pre-season training this month and did not join his team-mates on a tour of Asia due to injury.
Wenger is trying to convince Fábregas there would be no greater achievement for him than to lead Arsenal to success and that it is not the right time for him to leave England.
However, Peter Hill-Wood, the Arsenal chairman, has questioned how "keen" Barcelona are to sign Fábregas after no fresh bid was received by the club for the midfielder and Barcelona's insistence that their main target is Sánchez seems to back that up.
Hill-Wood said: "I am not sure how keen they are. There are still stories in the [Spanish] press, but they don't talk to us. They've made one offer, which works out at around £26m, but that was ages ago.
"At the moment our situation is very straightforward: we don't want to lose him. Obviously, if they come up with an offer which was a very good offer we would have to think about it.
"We have told them [Barcelona] a number of times that what they are proposing is unacceptable and yet they haven't moved on it. I don't approve of what they are doing, but unfortunately it seems the way of the world right now. It has become a real bore and an unnecessary interruption to what we are trying to achieve."
Guardiola added: "We need a forward. We have more players in midfield than in attack. Bojan [Krkic] and Jeffrén [Suárez] both want to leave, so the attack is more important."
Regarding Samir Nasri, the French forward who is wanted by Manchester City, Hill-Wood said Arsenal do not want to lose him: "City seem to have more money than anybody else and they keep splashing it around all over the place. But our position is very straightforward: we don't want the player to leave."
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