Fabregas teetering on brink of greatness

On the Premiership:Genius defies definition. By its very nature, it is an intangible, illusory concept, resistant to reasoned analysis. Mozart could write symphonies before he could read music.

There are those who would scoff at the notion of the footballer as artist, but that attitude, like all prejudices, is rooted in ignorance. The milieu may be different, but the processes involved are much the same: a reliance on sheer gut instinct, a readiness to attempt the audacious and a relentless, rampant desire to surpass past achievements.

Take Cesc Fabregas, for example. The brilliance of Arsenal's leading cavalier is made all the more luminous by the way he sidesteps convention. He does not have the muscular force of Steven Gerrard, the predatory instincts of Frank Lampard or the ability of Cristiano Ronaldo to leave defenders with, as the saying goes, twisted blood.

The Spaniard's slender, boyish frame - he is only 20, after all - is utterly ill-equipped for the midfield maelstrom that accompanies most Premier League matches, and if you spotted him loitering outside the Emirates stadium, dressed in his trademark jeans and baseball cap, you would probably mistake him for an Italian tourist.

Even so, there is no manager who would not welcome him into his side with the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for long-lost relatives. It may only be November, but already the youngster looks a shoo-in for Player of the Year.

We should all be thankful for the flourishing of Fabregas, who delivered another reminder of his startling talents in Saturday's summit meeting with Manchester United.

His development under Arsène Wenger's studious eye is welcome proof not only that free-thinking playmakers can blossom in the harum-scarum of English football but also that they can do so without looking like a cross between the Incredible Hulk and King Kong.

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when it was decided muscle should dominate the Premier League menu, but a good guess would be somewhere between the retirement of Gianfranco Zola - another impish genius - and the arrival of the strapping Didier Drogba at Chelsea. Now, it seems every top-flight manager rates the ability to bench-press your body weight more highly than the skill of threading a ball into apparently secret spaces.

Fabregas is the glorious antidote to such meat-headed pragmatism. The midfielder's extraordinary strike rate this term - he was at it again on Saturday, sliding in Arsenal's first equaliser with all the poise of a seasoned poacher - is usually cited as evidence of his burgeoning talents, but it is his creative powers that really take the breath away.

It is a rare talent indeed that can receive a pass, spot a colleague 40 yards away, hold off a tackle and ping a pass onto a square metre of grass, all in the time it has taken you to read this sentence. But speed, both of movement and of thought, is what Fabregas relies on: it is the skill that makes playing against him so exasperating and watching him so thrilling.

Perhaps the only playmaker of the new generation who bears comparison is Andre Pirlo, the Italian libero who propelled Milan to the Champions League title last season. Pirlo's game is also based around quick, incisive movement and an awareness of angles that would put a geometrician to shame, but even he does not boast the variety in Fabregas's game: the tenacity in the tackle, the lung-bursting sprints upfield.

There were moments, particularly last season, when you feared for Fabregas. Youthful impetuosity is not easily discarded and the Catalan's campaign was punctuated by needless spats. One incident when he bad-mouthed Mark Hughes, the Blackburn manager, after a grouchy FA Cup tie threatened to leave his reputation in tatters. A swift apology kept the damage to a minimum, but a footballer - particularly a young foreign one - gets only so many chances.

Fabregas, who plans to take a university degree after completing Spain's equivalent of the Leaving Certificate, is an intelligent man. He knew he had to grow up and that is exactly what he has done.

He has thrived on the extra responsibility afforded him in the wake of Thierry Henry's departure to Barcelona and he is now Arsenal's totem, the player they look to for inspiration in times of need. He has not let them down.

Alex Ferguson was right when he suggested last week that tyros such as Fabregas can be truly venerated only when their glittering reputations are converted into the hard currency of silverware. In that respect, a man with just one FA Cup to his name still has much to prove.

But not even United's old curmudgeon would pretend that Fabregas is not teetering on the brink of greatness.