The scapegoats for Arsenal’s recent travails have been many;

Arsene Wenger’s parsimony, William Gallas’ flakiness, Eduardo’s injury, David Dein’s departure and Nicklas Bendtner’s haircut have all got the blame. Yet, curiously, no one seems willing to point a finger at the central figure in Arsenal’s slide from the pinnacle of English football – Cesc Fabregas.

Fabregas has been an Arsenal regular for more than four years now. And apart from a fortunate FA Cup final win in which he played a peripheral role, he has won nothing. It’s time he shared in the flak.
I’m not talking simply about Fabregas’ current form – although that is appalling.

At the moment, Denilson Neves is attempting, and failing, to carry the Spaniard in Arsenal’s midfield. Fabregas is off the pace, he’s giving the ball away, he is slowing Arsenal’s game down, he is not tackling, he is not scoring.

This, to be fair, is a rare lapse in the Catalan’s standards, and one from which he will undoubtedly emerge.

But more troubling for Arsenal supporters will be the mounting evidence that Arsene Wenger’s great philosophy-shift has singularly failed. In 2005, he entrusted the future of the club to a prodigiously talented but diminutive and one-paced teenager – and thought he could build a European dynasty around Cesc and many more like him.

So far, all he’s done is concede Arsenal’s status as English football’s standard-bearers – a standing he’d worked so brilliantly to achieve.

Arsenal’s change of direction is almost certainly more a consequence of Wenger’s frustration at perennial Champions League exits than any lack of finance.

Exhilarated by Arsenal’s unbeaten league triumph in 2004, Wenger was bitterly disappointed with what followed in 2005. The surrender of the league crown was one thing – Chelsea’s emergence as improbably big spenders somewhat softened that blow.

But the tame exit to Bayern Munich in the last sixteen of the Champions League inflicted a huge dent in Wenger’s pride. The 3-1 defeat in the Olympiastadion was a particular embarrassment, when Arsenal were tormented by Pizarro and could have been humiliated if Torsten Frings hadn’t passed up a sitter at 3-0.

Time and again, a style of football that seemed the height of sophistication when compared to the primitive approach still widely favoured in the Premier League, failed to come up to the mark in Europe.
Clubs with resources more modest than Arsenal could draw on – the likes of Valencia and Deportivo la Coruna – had consistently inflicted chastening Euro reverses.

Around that time Wenger admitted; “I won’t be fulfilled if we don’t win the Champions League. If we go out of the Champions League, I’ll beat myself up and feel really upset. Unfortunately, I do that every season.”

In the emergence of Fabregas towards the end of that campaign, Wenger saw the midfield pivot that could finally allow Arsenal to control the tempo of a big European tie.

He backed that instinct by letting Patrick Vieira jump ship that summer, and added to the mix the mesmeric ball-retention abilities of Alex Hleb, a comrade undoubtedly on Fabregas’ wavelength, but equally as lightweight.

Almost at once the Arsenal way changed. What characteristics Arsenal’s championship winning sides under Wenger better than the lightning break? Think of Patrick Vieira’s marvellous charge from box to box in the title clincher at White Hart Lane in 2004. Or remember the stirring Anelka-led blitz that blasted four past Blackburn in half an hour as Wenger closed on his first title in 1998.

Vieira and Gilberto, and Edu, Petit and Grimandi before them, were so often the launch-pad for these swift raids, breaking up play high up the pitch and swiftly releasing the likes of Bergkamp or Pires in advanced positions, who could, in turn, supply the likes of Henry around them.

It was power play that didn’t always translate to the big European nights, where cannier opponents didn’t give the ball away quite so easily under Arsenal pressure and kept their powder try to capitalise once Arsenal had punched themselves out and tired in the second half.

Frustrated with continued failure on his personal Holy Grail, Wenger was seduced by Fabregas’ embodiment of the Barcelona way. He knew the Catalan’s gifts would allow Arsenal control big games like they never did before.

Furthermore, he was captivated by the possibilities of Fabregas’ youth – sure the best way to shape a dominant side around him would be to source more prodigies with none of the bad habits old pros bring to the party. So Walcott, Diaby, van Persie, Eboue, Adebayor and the rest arrived as cogs in a grand scheme that would craft the Ajax of the noughties.

Where once Arsenal would go box to box in two passes and four seconds, now they might take 25 and 60. Ball retention has become almost as important as goals. In truth, the new way has improved European performances – the PSV exit in 2007 apart, after which Wenger knew Henry was no longer in his long-term plans.

But domestic form has suffered and shorn of any experience to lean on around him, Fabregas has finally wilted under the weight of expectation.

Oft portrayed as the racist buffoon to Wenger’s sophisticate, veteran Spanish coach Luis Aragones handled the starlet’s promotion to senior ranks rather more sensibly than the Frenchman – allowing him work his magic in substitute cameos without the pressure of carrying a nation’s hopes.

His replacement Vicente del Bosque has continued this policy, apparently still unsure if Fabregas can be relied upon to knit together a solid unit for 90 minutes.

And as Arsenal list along, it’s ironic that another Spaniard is at the helm of the side playing football as close as anything around to Wenger’s old way of doing things.

Now that Rafa Benitez has taken the handbrake of his Liverpool team somewhat, at least domestically, his powerful unit built around the pace of Torres and a tough-tackling, swash-buckling midfield brings to mind Wenger’s first Arsenal side in 1998.

Most Arsenal fans would swap all the ball retention in Europe for their place at the top of the table. And maybe they’d even swap Fabregas.