Cesc Fàbregas Praises Arsenal's Patience and Leadership
Cesc Fàbregas has hailed Arsenal’s board for resisting the panic that rules so much of modern football and backing Mikel Arteta through the club’s early stumbles under his leadership.
The former Arsenal captain, who played 303 times for the club, returned to the Emirates Stadium and spoke with clear admiration for a project he believes was built on rare patience and conviction.
“What Arsenal did… it doesn’t exist”
“Congratulations to the club in general starting from seven, eight years ago when they first started with this project,” Fàbregas said after the match. “Because what you see in football every day, what Arsenal did, especially in the difficult moments, it doesn’t exist.”
He highlighted the years when Arsenal hovered outside the Champions League places, a period that would have triggered swift sackings at many elite clubs.
“I told Edu, I told Andrea [Berta] when I came last year to a Champions League game, I said congratulations to the whole club for the patience, for sticking together, for sticking to the plan when for three years in a row, correct me if I’m wrong, finished eighth, eighth, eighth, fourth year nearly Champions League, it was a big disappointment, Tottenham came, you finish fifth,” he recalled. “But you keep going because you have a plan, because you have an objective, because you have progression, you keep going forward.”
For Fàbregas, that refusal to flinch has underpinned Arsenal’s rise under Arteta and stands in stark contrast to the industry’s reflex to sack coaches at the first sign of trouble.
A warning to a restless sport
“We lack this in football today,” he said. “You lose three games, change the coach, he was playing one style, now you play another, at the end of the day I don’t believe in this a lot.”
That philosophy now shapes his own work at Como, where he is trying to build something slower, sturdier, and rooted in identity rather than impulse.
“I’m very lucky I’m in a project, of course with much lower level, the history, everything, but we’re trying to look at the stability Arsenal had, the values, the culture that they are bringing,” he explained.
Respect for Arteta and the dressing room
Fàbregas reserved particular praise for Arteta’s impact, both on the pitch and in the dressing room.
“I think Mikel has done a tremendous job. So I can only wish them the best, really,” he said. “Because most of the group, these guys now you talk to them, I don’t know… they’re good guys, they want to play good football, they are respectful, you can see how they stick to the plan all the time. Really, I’m super happy to come back here and smell this feeling.”
For a player who once embodied Arsenal’s midfield, the sense of recognition was striking: the culture he sees now is one he is trying to replicate in northern Italy.
Big tests ahead for Arsenal and Como
Arsenal’s next examination of that long-term vision comes quickly. They face Manchester City in the Community Shield in Cardiff on Sunday, 16 August, a sharp early gauge of their readiness before they begin their Premier League title defence against newly promoted Coventry City six days later.
On that same Sunday, Como will stage a double-header of friendlies against Liverpool. The first match will be played behind closed doors, the second in front of supporters, a useful dress rehearsal before they open their Serie A campaign against Udinese the following Saturday.
Two clubs at very different levels. One shared idea: pick a plan, live with the pain, and keep walking forward.
