Cesc’s part in Arsenal’s decline

He may not like it but Cesc Fabregas has steered Arsenal to a crossroads.

“I thought this was one of life’s chances to show the world that you can put lots of responsibility on my shoulders — I am ready to take it. I wanted to show everybody they could rely on me.’’

Just three years on from his decisive penalty against Italy in the European Championship quarter-final, it seems Cesc Fabregas is sick and tired of responsibility.

“I am the man that everyone looks to. I don’t like to say it but it is true. If I play badly, I take responsibility and the pressure of the supporters.’’

Cesc would like to chill, take a cruise, put on a little jazz. He has talked on Twitter about reviving his eponymous TV show. Cesc just wanna have fu-un.

Cesc isn’t responsible if a cunning magazine man recasts his “We’ll just take each game as it comes, señor’’ into a victim impact statement.

What can Cesc do if Eboue and the giddy forces of disorder wreck the good work he and his attacking chums have achieved in plundering a single penalty in 270 minutes of home league football?

Arsenal are at a crossroads, says Cesc. And Cesc wants to get out and walk.

But long before Arsenal arrived at this crossroads, there was a roundabout. The tachograph suggests Arsene Wenger approached it from the Munich Autobahn in February 2005, having seen his side all but humiliated at the Olympic Stadium.

Back at Highbury, Michael Ballack controlled the return as Bayern eased through — another bitter blow for a manager who has admitted to “sleepless nights’’ at Arsenal’s lack of Champions League success.

It was the last we’d see of the old Arsenal — Patrick Vieira’s Arsenal. The team that embarked on the club’s most successful Champions League campaign the following August was already Cesc Fabregas’s Arsenal.

The £140m Roman Abramovich paid for Chelsea in July 2003 and the looming move from Highbury might have determined the age profile of Wenger’s rebuilt side, but it was the emergence of Fabregas that conditioned how Arsenal would play.

Finally Wenger believed he had a player who could dictate the pace of a European tie, an ability that had proved beyond even his finest teams.

It’s easy to forget now but Wenger was once described — apparently by those renowned tactical chameleons at Talksport — as “the Ayatollah of 4-4-2.’’

At the height of Arsenal’s successes, Wenger sniffed at opponents who tried to crowd his side. “At the moment in England we are moving towards a trend where teams play five across the middle and one up front,’’ he observed in 2004.

Fabregas ensured he would soon embrace that trend.

The old Arsenal were physical giants, driving from box to box in 10 seconds propelled by Vieira, but seemingly unable to retain possession when faced with clever opponents like Ajax or Deportivo La Coruna. The new Arsenal passed around opponents rather than through them.

For a while Fabregas sat at the heart of it until Wenger believed he was strong enough to do his work closer to goal, tweaking Arsenal’s 4-3-3 to hand Cesc the keys to the attack. But after six barren years Fabregas and the system he seems to believe has failed him seem inextricably linked. Could some of the failing lie at his door?

Once upon a time, another Arsenal captain baulked at the growing responsibility thrust upon him. “I need to leave because I want to win more trophies and I just cannot see that happening at Arsenal, certainly not over the next few years anyway.’’

That was June 2001 and Patrick Vieira was 25, around a year older than Fabregas is now. But rather than walk, Vieira decided to step up and help Arsenal win two of the next three titles.

Only the very best get eras built around them and if Fabregas consistently played as imperiously as he did at White Hart Lane on Wednesday, Arsenal would have a cushion at the top of the league no amount of defensive frailty could undermine.

They have dropped 17 points at home to Manchester United’s two, scoring only six times in those seven games.

But Wednesday’s performance — better than Fabregas has produced in some time — indicated a willingness to knuckle down, even if his sad, bowed head at the end betrayed a feeling that it is others who have left him at this crossroads.

Perhaps it’s time to take even more responsibility.