Cesc Fàbregas Praises Arsenal's Patience Over Panic

Cesc Fàbregas knows Arsenal inside out, and he believes the club’s greatest recent victory didn’t come with a trophy lift – it came years earlier, in a boardroom, when they chose patience over panic.

Speaking at the Emirates Stadium after Arsenal’s latest outing, the former captain and terrace favourite praised the hierarchy for refusing to abandon their long-term vision during the early, turbulent stages of Mikel Arteta’s reign.

“The club in general, starting from seven, eight years ago when they first started with this project,” Fàbregas said, “what Arsenal did, especially in the difficult moments, it doesn’t exist.”

‘You keep going because you have a plan’

Fàbregas, who racked up 303 appearances for the Gunners, recalled conversations he had last season with sporting director Edu and Andrea Berta during a Champions League night at the Emirates. The message he delivered then still rings true.

“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,” he said.

The numbers still sting for many supporters. Mid-table finishes, questions over the manager, doubts over the direction. The fourth year brought a near miss, with Arsenal falling agonisingly short of the Champions League places.

“Fourth year nearly Champions League, it was a big disappointment,” Fàbregas added. “Tottenham came, you finish fifth, but you keep going because you have a plan, because you have an objective, because you have progression, you keep going forward.”

That, for him, is the point. Arsenal didn’t flinch. They absorbed the blows, trusted the process and allowed Arteta’s ideas to bed in rather than ripping everything up at the first sign of trouble.

A warning to the rest of football

Fàbregas contrasted Arsenal’s approach with the churn that defines much of the modern game. Lose a few matches, sack the coach, start again. Styles change, squads are rebuilt, and any sense of identity is lost.

“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.”

For him, Arsenal have become a reference point – and not just from afar. Now head coach at Como, Fàbregas is trying to transplant some of those north London principles to Lake Como.

“I’m very lucky I’m in a project, of course with much lower level, the history, everything,” he admitted, “but we’re trying to look at the stability Arsenal had, the values, the culture that they are bringing.”

‘Mikel has done a tremendous job’

Fàbregas’ respect for Arteta, a former team-mate, runs deep. He sees not just a tactician, but an architect of a culture that has reshaped the club.

“I think Mikel has done a tremendous job. So I can only wish them the best, really,” he said.

What strikes him most is the make-up of the dressing room and the unity of purpose he senses when he returns to the Emirates.

“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 carried Arsenal’s midfield on his shoulders, that “feeling” matters. It’s recognition that the club he left has rediscovered a clear identity.

Big tests ahead for Arsenal and Como

Arsenal’s resolve will be tested again soon enough. Arteta’s side face Manchester City in the Community Shield in Cardiff on Sunday, 16 August, a familiar early-season measuring stick against the team that has set the standard in English football.

Six days later comes the start of their Premier League title defence, at home to newly promoted Coventry City. A different kind of pressure, but pressure all the same: champions expected not just to win, but to dominate.

On that same Sunday, Fàbregas will be busy on his own touchline. Como are scheduled for a double-header of friendlies against Liverpool, the first behind closed doors and the second in front of supporters, a demanding dress rehearsal for a club trying to grow without losing its soul.

Then comes the real thing. Como open their Serie A campaign against Udinese the following Saturday, with Fàbregas attempting to prove that the patience and stability he admires so much at Arsenal can power a very different kind of project in Italy’s top flight.