Fabregas: “…probably the worst first half I’ve done in my life”

I just heard the post game interview given by Cesc, the portion that was covered in MotD. Here is what El Capitan said,

The first half was probably the worst first half I’ve done in my life because I didn’t have confidence. I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t sprint, I was losing every ball. But after in the second half I had strapping, it was a little bit better, and maybe because we wanted to win so much I didn’t think about it that much. But we see how it reacts.

Surprising that this wasn’t covered that well in the media. This does corroborate what Wenger said after the game,

Cesc played a bit within himself. He had a bit of tension in his hamstring. Let’s hope he has no setback.

At half-time, I had a hesitation to take him off. Then I left him on, I thought ‘just for 10 or 15 minutes’, but in the end he got better and better.

I guess most of us noticed this while watching the game itself. In my individual analysis I did mention he was a bit off-colour and didn’t play to his usual standards. His stats were still at least as good as those of Denilson and Song (barring the goal of course!). Kind of shows why Wenger wanted Cesc to play even when he wasn’t at his best. But with Walcott back we could have put Nasri in the middle. In that case the risk would have been that of giving Theo two starts in three days after a six week lay-off. Seems like a difficult decision either way.

I hope Arsene rests him for the mid-week Champions League tie but I won’t be surprised if we see him playing with a strapping. Fabregas is not the kind of player who would want to be away from the playing field and unless the medics have a strong negative opinion Le Boss will probably put him on. We’ll know more when Arsene gives an update on the fitness issues.

It’s also interesting to note how harsh Fabregas’ opinion of his own performance is. Many people claim to be their own worst critics but in this case we can clearly see the exaggerated criticism in his words. I guess that’s an off-shoot of being one of the very best, you cannot accept anything less than the highest level of performance.